The Office of Public Scholarship and Engagement (PSE) is pleased to announce seven graduate students have been awarded Public Scholars for the Future fellowships.
The fellowship program prepares the next generation of public scholars to integrate community-centered theories, methods and techniques into their disciplinary field of study, research design and methods. Visit the PSE website for more information about each scholar.
Learn more about the L&S Public Scholars for the Future fellows below.
Melissa Gomes
Linguistics
Melissa is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Linguistics. Melissa’s research interests center around one of her family's heritage languages, Konkani. As an academic, her research includes sociolinguistic work on language maintenance of Konkani as a heritage language as well as morphosyntactic work on the structure of Konkani. As a community member, Melissa strives to use research to help promote Konkani maintenance and create tools for Konkani language learning. Like many second-generation Goans in the diaspora, Konkani was not passed on to Melissa as a child. As a result, she is eager to learn Konkani herself and document her journey of learning her heritage language as both a linguist and a Goan-American.
Elisabeth Sellinger
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Elisabeth is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Bodega Marine Laboratory. Her research looks at carbon stored in the ocean — referred to as ‘blue carbon’ — in seagrass ecosystems along the California coast. Elisabeth aims to quantify short-term blue carbon accumulation in sediment by seagrass meadows to enhance our understanding of this invaluable marine system. In addition, she is focusing her work on stakeholder involvement and public engagement at Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in an effort to break down the barriers between academic pursuits and local needs. She is excited to strengthen her skills in multi-directional dialogue, relationship building and decision making to pursue publicly engaged research in coastal communities.
Carlos Torres-Astocóndor
Spanish and Portuguese
Carlos is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American literature and culture in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, with designated emphases in environmental humanities and human rights. His research analyzes the literary representations of the social, cultural and ecological consequences of rubber exploitation in the early 20th-century in Amazonia. He is also interested in developing a space for discussion and reflection on the historical perspective provided by indigenous communities in Loreto, Peru, regarding extractivist practices — both past (rubber and oil) and present (mining and logging). In this way, these spaces seek to promote a recovery of Amazonian indigenous communities’ intergenerational memory through the construction of a digital archive (via digital narratives, podcasts and visual art publications).
About UC Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement
Public Scholars for the Future was launched in spring 2022 in partnership with UC Davis Graduate Studies. Key elements include: A two unit, 10-week seminar during spring quarter where students collectively engage in readings and discussions focused on theories, methodologies and practices of community-engaged research; one-on-one mentoring by UC Davis faculty public scholars; and $1,000 for research support.
A version of this story originally appeared on the UC Davis Public Engagement and Scholarship website.