Graduate Research Award
Applications for the 2026-2027 academic year will be announced soon.
Click here for more information on previous calls for applications.
Graduate Recipients
2026
Titas Ganguly, History Department
"Fencing the Banyan and the Olive: Charles Tegart, the Geography of Counterinsurgency and Policed Environments in Interwar Bengal and Palestine"
Summary: My research explores the world of interwar counterinsurgency and surveillance in colonial Bengal and Mandate Palestine by focusing on the career of certain agents of the British Empire. I have conducted archival research in Kolkata, London and Oxford and the Suad Joseph Graduate Research Grant provided crucial support. The next step for me would be to present my findings in relevant conferences.
Xiwen Yang, History Department
"Sufism and Natural Science in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire"
Summary: I work on early modern Ottoman history of Sufism and science, which requires travelling to archives in Turkey. The Suad Joseph grant allowed me to travel to Istanbul and conduct research in the archival libraries there for a week. During my time there, I have found valuable historical sources related to my research, the grant therefore played a crucial role in supporting my research and the progress in my PhD journey.
2025
Hala Mohammad Alkhatib, Human Development
"Role of Religion in Service Access for Muslim Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder."
2024
Laura Catterson, Comparative Literature
"Echoes of a Rebellious Past: Contemporary Adaptations of Modernist Iranian Literature."
Reema Saad, Sociology
"Muslim Women Negotiating Menstruation and Religious Piety on TikTok."
Summary: As a recipient of the Suad Joseph Research Grant, I was able to make progress on and complete my qualifying paper (QP), which explores how Muslim women TikTok creators negotiate between Orientalist and Islamic gender codes in order to forge alternative meanings of menstruation in relation to their religious and social lives. Over the course of the project, I presented my findings at various events, including George Mason University Public Sociology Association Brown Bag (2024), Pacific Sociological Association Conference (2025), UC Davis Middle East/South Asia Studies Research Symposium (2025), and California Sociological Association Conference (2025). My current dissertation work, which examines how and why Muslims in the United States make their gender ideologies public on TikTok, builds on the research completed for the QP.
Temirlan Tileubek, History
“The Nature of the Rule of the Russian Empire in Central Asia.”
Whitne Moussan, Sociocultural Anthropology
"The Ideology of Risk and Resilience: Tracing an Absent State through Ethnopsychiatry and Difference in Lebanon."
Xiwen Yang, History
"Views from the Province: An Eighteenth-Century Ottoman’s Reckoning with Science"
2023
Margaret Culuris-Harp, Art History
“The Beth Alpha Synagogue and Zodiac Mosaic as a Jewish reaction to Pagan Roman and Byzantine Rule.”
Beshara Kehdi, Cultural Studies
“Diasporic Dreaming: Arab International Students and Educating the Crisis.”
Elmira Louie, Comparative Literature
“The Ottoman Turkish comedy play titled Şair Evlenmesi (The Wedding of a Poet).”
Sabujkoli Mukherjee, History
“The Ecological Transformation of the Bengal Delta in the Age of Empire.”
Ruinong Yin, Comparative Literature
“Khitayname Revisited: Literariness in Ali Akbar’s Book on China.”