The UB Presidential Fellowship Program helps to fund outstanding graduate students. To be eligible, a nominee must be a new applicant to a PhD program and must be appointed as a full teaching, graduate or research assistant. Nominees must also have a cumulative undergraduate grade point average of 3.40 or higher upon admission.
The standardized test requirement has been temporarily suspended, through spring 2023.
For more information about the Presidential Fellowship, please contact your academic department.
Each school or college has an internal admissions and selection process. Please contact your academic department for more information.
To maintain Presidential (or Schomburg) funding, students must continue to receive a full teaching, graduate or research assistant appointment, obtain a 3.0 GPA each semester and complete classes in a timely manner. Failure to meet these requirements may result in termination of a student’s award.
Throughout the year, the Office of Fellowships and Scholarships encourages our Presidential and Schomburg scholars to share their research with one another during our Research Talks. These talks allow for the exchange of knowledge among the community and create potential for scholarly collaborations.
Date
| Name
| Degree
| Title and Description
|
|---|---|---|---|
| October 27, 2022 | Shu Wan | PhD, History | We, Tong Bing: An Early History of the Chinese Deaf Community
Focusing on the formation of the deaf community before and during the War of Resistance, this essay explores Chinese deaf leaders' endeavors and the evolution of the deaf community in the following two sections. The first section examines the proliferation of deaf education in early twentieth century Chinese society. After examining the evolution from a network consisting of deaf educators and educated to a national deaf community before the War of Resistance, the second section switches to dead elites’ reactions to the influence of the national crisis on deaf people, especially those who were impoverished and in plight. |
April 22, 2022 | Narayan Dhimal | PhD, Neuroscience | Critical Components: Understanding the Role of Cellular Recycling in Krabbe Disease
Narayan’s work is centered around Krabbe disease, a severe neurological condition that affects 1 in 100,000 people in the United States. People who suffer from Krabbe disease lack a key enzyme that is required for autophagy, the body’s natural process to clear out or recycle damaged or unnecessary cellular components. This leads to abnormal amounts of myelin — a layer of proteins and fatty acids that surround nerves — and contributes to the disease’s severity. While there is currently no cure for Krabbe disease, there are approved bone marrow therapies as well as ongoing gene therapy trials. Narayan’s research focusing on the regulation of myelin hopes to find a new therapeutic strategy that can work in tandem with these treatments. |
| April 1, 2022 | LaShekia Chatman | PhD, Anthropology | Contrasting Motivations Among Black Reproductive Professionals: Competing Paradigms for Reimagining Liberation
LaShekia’s second year thesis began as an exploration into the Black midwife and doula movement as a source of cultural and political empowerment, yet evolved into a rarely-explored narrative on the struggle for cultural capital among emerging ethnomedical practices, ideas on professionalism, the future of medical education, and the need for reimagining what culturally resonant care means for not only patients, but BIPOC practitioners. |
Date
| Name
| Degree
| Title and Description
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec. 2, 2021 | John Aulich | PhD, Music Composition | Paving the Way For Feminism: Female Fluxus Artists of the 1960s Fluxus is a highly influential arts movement dating from the 1960s, the impact of which is still strongly felt today. Its proponents and their descendants push the boundaries of what art can be by inviting active exploration through unfolding multi-sensory experiences. Fluxus as a whole was extremely politically radical, and its male adherents in particular often created works with strong and overt political sentiments. As a result, most scholarly attention to the political side of Fluxus artists has been paid to male Fluxus artists and their polemics. In contrast, researchers have only recently begun exploring the equally politically charged work of Fluxus art by women. John's research looks at three specific pieces of Fluxus art created by women in the 1960s and shows how their implicit connotation pave the way for more overt feminist art in the 1970s. |
| Oct. 28, 2021 | Shu Wan | PhD, History | Francis G. Benedict and Racialization of the Chinese Basal Metabolism in the Early 20th Century Shu's research looks at the work of American biochemist Francis G. Benedict, who studied the Chinese racial feature in basal metabolism from 1927 to 1937. Shu looks at Benedict's work collectively, studying his concept, research and post-research impact. The conclusion of this research argues that it is misleading to characterize Benedict's racialized basal metabolism studies in a progressive, positive narrative. |
| Sept. 29, 2021 | Aria Wiseblatt | PhD, Clinical Psychology | Examining the Impact of Alcohol and Hookups on Sexual Victimization in White, Black and Asian College Women Sexual victimization (SV) of women continues to be a prevalent issue on college campuses. Literature suggests that heavy alcohol use and hookups are significant predictors of sexual victimization in college women. However, little research examines whether and in what ways these risk factors may operate differently among college women of different racial backgrounds. Aria's findings suggest that future research on college SV and SV prevention programs on college campuses should consider risk factors that disproportionally impact non-white women. |
April 30, 2021
| Amanda Waggoner
| PhD, Geography
| Race and Place in Washington, D.C.
|
March 31, 2021
| N.D. Lambert
| PhD, Political Science
| How far ahead do nations plan?
|
Date
| Name
| Degree
| Title and Description
|
|---|---|---|---|
Nov. 4, 2020
| Sarah Quinones
| PhD, Epidemiology and Environmental Health
| Disability and Multidimensional Well-Being Among Adolescents in Rural Tanzania
|
Oct. 14, 2020
| Jamal Williams and Megan Conrow-Graham
| PhD, Physiology and Biophysics; MD/PhD, Neuroscience
| Ain’t I a Woman? How the U.S. Healthcare System is Failing Women of Color
|
Sept. 23, 2020
| Antara Satchidanand
| PhD, Communication Disorders and Sciences
| Put the what, where?! Referencing in Robot Assisted Surgery
|
Aug. 25, 2020
| Alber Aqil
| PhD, Biological Sciences
| Balancing Selection Maintaining Polymorphisms in Hominins
|
Aug. 4, 2020
| Eric Deutsch
| PhD, History
| “Fiddler’s Bitch”: The Guide Dog Movement Comes to America
|
July 14, 2020
| Adrian Stein
| PhD, Mechanical Engineering
| Nonlinear Control of a Knuckle-Boom Crane With an Inertial Payload
|
June 30, 2020
| Pegi Bakula
| PhD, Linguistics
| Introducing Yil, a People and Language of Papua New Guinea Bakula introduced listeners to the Yil people of Papaua New Guinea, who belong to the Wapei branch of the Torricelli family. This language faces extinction, and Bakula’s research interests and goals seek to keep it alive.
|
June 9, 2020
| Olivia Geneus
| PhD, Physical Chemistry
| Hypoxia Targeted Nanoparticles of a T1 Contrast Agent
|
April 9, 2020
| Raven Baxter
| PhD, Curriculum, Instruction and the Science of Learning, concentration in Science Education
| “Big Ole Geeks”: How Innovation in Hip-Hop and Reality Pedagogy Set a Precedent for Representation in Science for Black Women
|
March 4, 2020
| Venus Amiri
| PhD, Chemical and Biological Engineering
| Computational Analysis of Magnetic Droplet Generation and Manipulation in Microfluidic Devices
|
Date
| Name
| Degree
| Title and Description
|
|---|---|---|---|
Nov. 18, 2019
| Hannah Waterman
| MS/PhD, Biological Sciences
| Evolution of Sex Determination in the Allopolyploid Razorback Sucker (Xyrauchen texanus)
|
Oct. 21, 2019
| Gloria Aidoo-Frimpong
| PhD, Community Health and Health Behavior
| Assessing Coverage of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) Health-Related Topics in Educational Training Programs: A Comparison of Medical, Nursing and Pharmacy Students
|
Aug. 15, 2019
| Lauren Rodriguez
| PhD, Clinical Psychology
| Rodriguez' research interests focus on the emotional and social mechanisms that contribute to substance misuse among individuals with a history of trauma and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). After her graduate work, Rodriguez wishes to obtain a research career as a clinical scientist at a university or veteran's administration hospital.
|
July 9, 2019
| Steven Lewis and Jamal Williams
| PhD, Pathology and Anatomical Sciences; PhD, Biomedical Sciences (Neuroscience)
| Efficient Biomedical Image Utilization for Gross Anatomy Education
|
April 30, 2019
| Ali Al Qaraghuli
| PhD, Electrical Engineering
| Terahertz Communications for Space and Beyond
|
April 9, 2019
| Gloria Aidoo-Frimpong
| PhD, Community Health and Health Behavior
| Peer and Community Factors on PrEP Uptake: A Qualitative Study of PrEP Users in Western New York
|
March 26, 2019
| Megan Donahue
| PhD, Rehabilitation Engineering
| Are you presenting for everyone? Tips and Tricks for Inclusive Presentations
|
Feb. 19, 2019
| Monica Johnson
| PhD, Counseling and School Psychology
| African American Acculturation and the "Strong Black Woman" Phenomenon
|
Each fall, the President of the University at Buffalo hosts a reception at his home honoring the Presidential Fellowship recipients. This event allows for networking among current Presidential fellows, faculty supporters and administrators of UB’s Presidential Fellowship program.
Presidential fellows are encouraged to take advantage of one of the many exceptional opportunities for networking and learning that the University at Buffalo has to offer: The Distinguished Speakers series. A reception is hosted for Presidential fellows prior to a lecture from a distinguished speaker, such as Angela Davis.
