Resources
Funding Opportunities
The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Fund
HISTORY
The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Fund was established to honor the contributions of Professors Simon Ottenberg and Edgar V. Winans to the African Studies Program at the University of Washington and to the field of African Studies. During their distinguished careers, Professors Ottenberg and Winans taught and mentored numerous students and advanced scholarship on Africa. Recipients of this fellowship commemorate their legacy.
ELIGIBILITY
Eligible students may be enrolled in any undergraduate, graduate or professional school at the University of Washington. For UW students traveling to Africa, the fellowship can be used to support travel and related expenses, living expenses, and research materials. For African students visiting or studying at UW, funds can be used to support same expenses as well as costs related to attending the UW. Fellowships are expected to be awarded for amounts between $250 and $750.
NEXT DEADLINE: SPRING 2025
Instructions for submitting application materials:
A) Submit the following documents to africa1@uw.edu
- Most current resume or CV
- An ‘unofficial’ UW transcript
- A statement of purpose of not more than two single-spaced pages in which you describe a) the nature and purpose of the research project you are proposing; b) the relevance of the project for the field of African studies; c) the institutional support you have for the project; d) your qualifications for the project, including the project’s significance to your academic career goals and past experience that prepares you for this project e) timeline for travel and completion of project
B) One letter of reference from an academic advisor who will support you in supervising the project, emailed directly to africa1@uw.edu
C) The subject of your email should include: your last name – OW 2024 (for example: Smith – OW 2024)
Awarded students will be asked to submit a photo and a short description of the project to be featured on our African Studies website.
Questions about the fellowship or the application process should be directed to africa1@uw.edu.
Congratulations to the 2024 Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Recipients!
Shabazz Abdulkadir (Built Environments)
The title of my project is “Visual Reinterpretations of Cultural Identity in Post-War Mogadishu. The Somali people have historically been unified by tribal affiliations, which over the past 30 years, have been central to civil conflict and war. My research project aims to address the question that keeps emerging: After 30 years of civil war, what is Somali-nimo and what common threads of national identity can be identified that transcend tribal affiliations? As Mogadishu has been the epicenter of conflict, this project seeks to explore the concept of Somali-nimo—the essence of carrying the Somali identity—by capturing the diverse understandings of this identity through innovative visual media and interviews with Mogadishu’s locals.
In the past Presidents Siad Barre and Mohamed Farmajo successfully united the country by emphasizing a national identity of strength and prosperity, while President Sharif emphasized a unifying Muslim identity. This project aims to build on these efforts by exploring the parameters of what it means to be Somali today and the space for diversity in that definition. By collecting data on the diverse understandings of Somali-nimo, this project hopes to illuminate and document common threads of a national identity, revealing alternate pathways to unity during a time of shifting cultural and political paradigms in Somalia. By filling a critical gap in African studies, this project will provide new insights into the role of visual media in cultural documentation and identity negotiation, contributing significantly to the discourse on cultural resilience and transformation in African societies.
Meagan Doll (Department of Communications)
I am an PhD candidate in the Department of Communication where I study journalism and public opinion, most often in East Africa. My dissertation examines factors driving news media trust in Uganda with particular focus on how sociopolitical forces shape individuals’ perceptions of journalism. The mixed-method project involves in-depth interviews that I conducted in and around Kampala in spring 2023, followed by a nationally representative telephone survey to explore associations between interview themes and other commonly studied antecedents of media trust. Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship funds will support data collection for the telephone survey fielded in Uganda this year.
Minji Jeong (Department of Political Science)
I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science. My primary research interest lies in uncovering the impact of migration on domestic politics in the Global South. Africa, in particular, has been at the core of my research throughout my academic and professional training. My current research project explores how the influx of immigrants affect natives’ relative strength of national identity vis-à-vis ethnic identity in Kenya. Current literature focuses more on natives’ attitudes toward immigrants in developed countries, overlooking how immigrants might impact local ethnic dynamics of host countries in the Global South. My research aims to address this gap in our understanding. Employing both public survey data and my own survey, I assess whether increasing presence of immigrants change the salience of different group boundaries, thus strengthening specific identity. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship funds will support me to present this research in African Politics panel at the 2024 American Political Science Association annual meeting and collect feedback from Africanist scholars. This will be an invaluable opportunity for refining and advancing my research.
Maren Luján (Department of Anthropology)
In 2018, I had the opportunity to complete independent ethnographic research in northern rural Sierra Leone, investigating the health system, post-Ebola, through the lived experiences of women. Over the course of this research, I and my research assistant, Ms. Adama Esther Bangura, generated over 80 recorded interviews and focus groups, 18 of which were predominantly conducted in the local language, Temne. As part of my exploration into collaborative and transformative research methods, I am planning to use this award to conduct new analysis of the interviews employing both elements of “oral coding” as well as collaborative analysis with the assistance of my former RA, Ms. Bangura, a native Temne speaker, as well as a third RA, a trained Temne interpreter. Given that Temne is primarily an oral language, I’m interested in pursuing this collaborative oral coding analysis as an opportunity to challenge hegemonic approaches to scientific inquiry as have been conceptualized under “rationalistic paradigms” (Bernaur, 2015) which emphasize (a limited view of) reason and writing, dismissing and neglecting other senses and ways of knowing and experiencing the world. By employing both oral and collaborative methods, we align this work more closely with the cultural context from which this research originated, our group discussions with Temne women, in order to make sense of the barriers they faced in accessing health.
Sikose Mjali (Department of English)
I am a PhD student in the English department. My research lies at the intersection between critical linguistics and language ideology. I examine the role of language in establishing and/or diminishing power. I am specifically interested in the linguistic choices made by oppressed groups and liberation movements during apartheid South Africa. My dissertation project necessarily adopts an interdisciplinary approach through Corpus Linguistics (CL), Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and qualitative interviews. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will fund travel to South Africa where I will conduct qualitative interviews. By examining the transformative power of language in challenging oppressive structures, the project will bring to light the multifaceted narratives that went suppressed and obscured during apartheid.
Yasir Zaidan (Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies)
My name is Yasir Zaidan, and I am a Ph.D. candidate at the Jackson School for International Studies. My research focuses on the intersection of local, national, and regional politics in the development of port projects in three key Red Sea port cities. I have conducted ethnographic research in Portsudan (Sudan), Doraleh Port (Djibouti), and the Port of Aqaba (Jordan). The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will support the writing phase of my dissertation this summer, during which I plan to complete the final two chapters on Djibouti’s port and the concluding chapter of my study.
Congratulations to the 2023 Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Recipients!
Charles Bugre – Information Science
“I am Charles Bugre, a PhD student at the Information School. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will help fund interviews and a workshop for my dissertation research in the Upper East Region, Ghana. I will study how individuals with limited to no literacy assess the veracity and authenticity of information (e.g. images, audio, and videos), and explore how to design critical literacy interventions that help them assess digital information more effectively. This research is a direct response to the emerging threat of misinformation across the African continent – the intersection of illiteracy, mobile technology, social media and deepfakes is a looming danger for Africa whose democracy is still fragile.”
Meagan Doll – Department of Communication
“I am an PhD candidate in the Department of Communication where I study public opinion and news, most often in East Africa. My dissertation examines factors driving media trust in urban Uganda with particular focus on how socio-political forces shape these processes. The mixed-method project involves in-depth interviews conducted in and around Kampala, followed by a representative survey to explore associations between interview themes and other commonly studied antecedents of media trust. Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship funds will support data collection for the project and ultimately advance its contributions to interdisciplinary fields of political communication, journalism studies, African studies, and beyond.”
Ramya Kumar – School of Public Health Epidemiology
“I am a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology within the School of Public Health. My research aims to provide insights that can help shape HIV prevention programs for women engaged in sex work within Southern Africa. My work seeks to understand the various forms of stigma and discrimination that women face from their community and health care providers, and how these barriers make it difficult for women to receive a proven biomedical intervention that reduces the acquisition of HIV—Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV or “PrEP”. My research is at the unique intersection of social policy and health inequity, and aims to promote individual services or best practices that are associated with stigma reduction for sex workers, in HIV prevention programs throughout the southern Africa region. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will help support my field work in Zambia to conduct this research.”
Diana Lalika – Department of Global Health
“I am a Master of Public Health student in the Department of Global Health who is passionate about addressing pressing public health challenges in low-resource settings, especially by leveraging the intersection between nutrition and health. This spring, I have been working on a project that focuses on laying a foundation for a human-centered design (HCD) hub within the Government of Tanzania’s Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre to innovate nutrition solutions. I am developing training materials and resources for the workshop.The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will aid in these efforts to improve nutrition solutions in Tanzania”.
Irene Mukui – Department of Global Health
“I am a PhD student in Global Health Metrics and Implementation Science (IS track) at the Department of Global Health, UW, where my research focuses on HIV prevention, care, and treatment. Over the years, I have been actively involved in various research projects, particularly in the outcomes of HIV treatment and prevention work related to Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV. Currently, I am working on an important research project that aims to provide oral HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to young women in sub-Saharan Africa. The primary objectives of this project are to assess the uptake, adherence, and user preferences of oral PrEP, while also evaluating its effectiveness in reducing HIV incidence among the study population. In my specific role within the project, I am focusing on assessing the background HIV incidence among women who test HIV positive at the beginning of the study. This data will serve as a critical comparator to the new infections that occur when using PrEP. I am thrilled to have been awarded the Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship. This fellowship will contribute to support my attendance of the 12th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science which will be held in Brisbane, Australia, in July 2023. During this conference, I will have the opportunity to present preliminary data on our research findings. I am excited about this opportunity as it is a relatively novel area of study, and I look forward to connecting with other experts in the field. By sharing our preliminary findings and engaging in discussions, we hope to make valuable contributions to the prevention of HIV infection in young women in Africa.”
Morgan Wack – Department of Political Science
“As a Ph.D. Candidate in the Political Science Department, support provided by the African Studies Program through the Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will enable me to conduct interviews in Tanzania related to the influence of novel digital repression technologies. While recent work has attempted to detail the specific strategies used by autocratic governments to repress online dissent and undermine pro-democracy mobilization, few studies have engaged with the human rights organizations and activists on the frontlines to gather their unique insights related to daily encounters with digital censorship campaigns. My research aims to fill this void while highlighting the experiences of those most affected by the implementation of new technologies.”
Yasir Zaidan – International Studies
Yasir Zaidan is currently doing his dissertation research in the Red Sea region. He will use the Ottenberg-Winans award to travel to Jordan, Aqaba, where he will observe port development projects. He aims to explore similarities and differences between Arab and African ports in the Red Sea. After leaving Sudan because of the current war there, Zaidan is exploring other African ports to continue researching ports and politics in the Red Sea.
Danwei Zhu – International Studies
“I am a PhD candidate at the Jackson School of International Studies. With a strong interest in Africa’s conflict resolution experience, I chose ECOWAS, West Africa’s most prominent regional security organization, as my research focus and the 2016- 2017 Gambia constitutional crisis as my case study. My research aims to systematically examine ECOWAS’s contested involvement in Gambia and reveal the role of ECOWAS in security governance. With help from the Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship, I will travel to Nigeria and Gambia for field research this summer to conduct interviews with professionals and people on the ground.”
2022 Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Recipients
The African Studies Program at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies wishes to congratulate:
Renee Lynch – Department of English
I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of English. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will help fund ongoing data collection for my dissertation project in Morogoro, Tanzania. My research explores the dynamics of international collaboration in English language teaching in order to reflect more critically on the nature of cross-cultural partnerships. I am examining the existing relationship between myself and a group of English instructors at a university in Morogoro. Through an ethnographically-oriented study of our identities in practice, I focus on cultivating more equitable relationships between colleagues in order to decolonize educational spaces and affect authentic exchange in similar settings.
Sumaya Mohamed – Sociocultural Anthropology / Global Health
Salaam! I am a recent MPH graduate from the Department of Global Health and currently pursuing my Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology. My project aims to uncover the various mechanism, strategies, and movements taken by Somalis in the diaspora to reconstruct their connection with the region. I will investigate the complexities and obligations of Somalinimo (the essence of being Somali). This project is situated in contemporary hybrid post-colonial identities studies. It will add nuance to a prevalent discourse of a homogenous Somali identity and become a frame for making sense of the entangled nature of governance and state-building in Somalia. The importance of the physicality of where one is from is up for question, and everyone has their own answer. However, this project will uncover patterns in these individual answers and how people negotiate their belonging and inclusion in homeland politics despite the distance. Exploring the personal intimacies of sovereignty, state-building, and governance as obligations of Somalinimo will bring a new post-colonial angle to the phenomena of governmentality and nationhood by providing insight to analyze the current nation and state-building taking place in Somalia today.
Claire Rater – Public Health Epidemiology and Social Work
I am a concurrent degree student in Public Health-Epidemiology and Social Work-Community Centered Integrative Practice. I am passionate about exploring the relationships between public health data and direct community and individual intervention by utilizing skills in social connection and development. This summer, I will be working on a community-based monitoring and evaluation research project examining the effectiveness of maternal birth kits distributed among health facilities in the rural Rufiji District of Tanzania. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will aid in efforts made to reduce and prevent maternal and child death in Tanzania.
Cara Tobey – Public Health
I am a third-year undergraduate student majoring in Public Health-Global Health. My research interest is in maternal and child health in low resource countries. This scholarship will support my study abroad program focusing on community health research in Rwanda. My research preparing for this project was specifically looking at parental challenges to providing adequate nutrition for preterm infants post-hospital discharge. During this trip, I aspire to build upon the foundation of knowledge that I gained to assess the methods of health care workers in Rwanda and the resources that they are able to provide to mothers and children to support both labor and postpartum care.
Yasir Zaidan – Ph.C. International Studies
My name is Yasir Zaidan, and I am a Ph.D. candidate at the Jackson School for International Studies. My research project investigates the intersection of local, national, and regional politics of port development projects in three port cities in the Red Sea. I plan to conduct ethnographic research in the port of Berbera in Somaliland and Portsudan in Sudan and contrast my findings from these evolving port spaces with comparative data from a more established port from the northern region of the Red Sea, Aqaba, Jordan. new dynamics between center and periphery in the light of regional investment competition. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will fund my archival research in Khartoum from August to September 2023. I plan to study public documents that are related to the creation of Portsudan and official archives of the port development between the 1920s and 1950s.
Danwei Zhu – Ph.C. International Studies
I am a Ph.D. student at the Jackson School. My research interest is centered on conflict resolution and security governance in West Africa. During my graduate study, I was fascinated by the regional security organization—ECOWAS—and its prominent role in managing various security challenges, from civil wars to illicit drug trafficking. I continue to work on this topic and focus on ECOWAS’s crisis management in member states’ political and conflict crises. A case study on the Gambia Constitutional Crisis (2016- 2017) is essential for my doctoral dissertation project, aiming to examine ECOWAS’s military intervention in Gambia and its implication for regional security governance. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will support my field trip to Banjul (Gambia) and Abuja (Nigeria) to conduct this research.
2021 Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Recipients
The African Studies Program at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies wishes to congratulate:
Megan Erickson – Department of Political Science
I am a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Washington. My research examines the dynamics of violence, governance, and social order in the context of political violence and organized crime. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will help fund research on the pathways through which pro-government militias transform into gangs after conflict in the context of Sierra Leone. This research will have broader implications on addressing organized crime in postwar environments by examining the role of former combatants in post-conflict peace initiatives.
Yasir Zaidan – International Studies (JSIS)
My name is Yasir Zaidan, and I am a first-year Ph.D. student at the Jackson School for International Studies. My research project investigates the intersection of local, national, and regional politics of port development projects in three port cities in the Red Sea. I plan to conduct ethnographic research in the port of Berbera in Somaliland and Portsudan in Sudan and contrast my findings from these evolving port spaces with comparative data from a more established port from the northern region of the Red Sea, Aqaba, Jordan. new dynamics between center and periphery in the light of regional investment competition. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will fund a pilot project of fieldwork that I plan to do in the summer of 2021 if the Covid-19 conditions allow or in the summer of 2022. I plan to visit Portsudan and Berbera and spend time in these ports to develop an ethnographic sensibility of the social, economic, and historical features of port development in East Africa.
Danwei Zhu – International Studies (JSIS)
I am a Ph.D. student in International Studies at the Jackson School. My research interests lie in conflict and security issues in Africa. I currently focus on the role of regional security organizations in solving conflicts and providing security governance, particularly the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). My research examines the efficiency of ECOWAS in addressing security challenges, for instance, its involvement in member states’ civil wars and political crises. With the help of the Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Fund, I will travel to The Gambia to conduct fieldwork and explore the effect of ECOWAS intervention in the country.
2020 Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Recipients
The African Studies Program at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies wishes to congratulate:
Meagan Doll – Department of Communication
I am an MA/PhD student in the Department of Communication, and my research interests include news content effects and public policy. I position my work at the intersection of journalism studies and political communication, and I am particularly interested in how news media processes influence human rights policymaking. Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship funds will support data collection for my master’s thesis project, which examines how journalists interpret and understand the concept of “peace journalism” as a model for reporting practice in East Africa.
Renee Lynch – English 
My dissertation research explores the dynamics of international collaboration in English language teaching. This project examines the existing relationship between myself and professors of English at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Tanzania, in order to reflect more critically on the nature of cross-cultural partnerships. Given the intricate links between English and colonialism as well as English and development, this research asks how English teachers make sense of what they do, given who they are, and how this can affect authentic exchange in similar settings. Through an ethnographically-oriented study of English teacher identities, I will focus on cultivating more equitable relationships between colleagues in order to decolonize educational spaces.
Morgan Wack – Political Science
I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Washington. My research examines the politics of security provision, migrant rights, and the integration of new technologies in securitization efforts in sub-Saharan Africa. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will help fund research in South Africa focused on how differential forms of security provided to low-income inhabitants impacts patterns of urban crime, the persistence of criminal organizations, and levels of communal trust. This research will have implications for regional security and urban development policy while substantiating efforts to improve the reach of essential service provision.
Sabrina Ebengho – Global Health 
I am an undergraduate Public Health – Global Health major and Informatics minor. Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, I aspire to help strengthen health systems, promote equity and increase access to quality health services for all. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Fund will support the Women Empowerment Democratic Republic of Congo (WEDRC) project, and enable me to further dive in global health research and implementation science. WEDRC is focused on empowering upper secondary school students with comprehensive sexual and reproductive health education, in Mbandaka, Equateur, DRC.
2019 Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Recipients
Francis Abugbilla – International Studies (JSIS)
“I am a PhD student in International Studies at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. I research on conflict resolution and peacebuilding mechanisms in post-conflict societies. My primary field of concentration is peace, violence, and security with a secondary field in law, rights, and governance. My dissertation focusses on how post-conflict peacebuilding mechanisms affect the prospects of reconciliation in Africa. I am particularly interested in the tension that is created when states adopt multiple peacebuilding strategies such as retributive justice and truth and reconciliation commission concurrently in seeking reconciliation. What impact does the tension have on reconciliation? I am going to examine this question in Côte d’Ivoire since it adopted these two mechanisms at the same time after its second civil war. Thanks to the Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship, I will conduct my fieldwork in Côte d’Ivoire and interview Ivorian refugees in Ghana this summer.”
Laura Blasi – Public Health, Nutrition
Laura Blasi is enrolled in the Graduate Coordinated Program in Dietetics. She is working simultaneously towards the completion of a Master in Public Health in Nutritional Sciences and the coursework & practice experiences necessary to become a Registered Dietitian. Prior to living in Seattle, she lived in New York City where she spent several years working at a nonprofit serving the homeless population and teaching nutrition education classes to children. With the Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Fund, Laura will travel to Naivasha, Kenya and create a breastfeeding counseling course for nursing staff at the local hospital for her MPH Capstone project. Upon completion of her graduate program, Laura plans to pursue a career in global health and specialize in maternal and child health.
Wintana Dawit – Business Administration
Throughout my time in Ghana, I will be studying the entrepreneurship eco system in Accra and comparing it to that of Seattle and the United States as a whole. I plan to do this through visiting young local entrepreneurs and meeting with business students at Ashesi University. I intend to create a business model that is modeled after theirs.
Marie-Claire Gwayi-Chore – Global Health
I am a PhD student in Global Health Implementation Science programme in the Department of Global Health, School of Public Health. My research interests include evaluating the implementation of large-scale school- and community-based interventions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and conducing implementation science (IS) research in LMICs. My work is centered around ensuring that Ministries of Health, their in-country technical partners, and communities feel empowered and included in defining the priorities and best practices for designing and implementing IS and efficacy research. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will help support my travel expense to Benin where I will be performing a qualitative process evaluation of ongoing IS research activities as part of my current research in the DeWorm3 Project to (1) gain a better understanding of perceptions from local IS researchers about their process implementing IS research and its feasibility within an LMIC, (2) detail challenges and successes regarding the adaptability of novel IS instruments within an LMIC context and (3) develop a set of recommendations to optimize future IS research activities.
Berette MacAulay, Cultural Studies – Bothell
I am an artist, writer, and graduate candidate in the Cultural Studies program at the Interdisciplinary School of Arts & Sciences at UW Bothell. My capstone research is epistemologically rooted in privileging oral(+ideophonic/nonverbal)soundings, facial expressions, and gestures from my cultures in Jamaica and Sierra Leone. My interest is in using video and photography to archive embodied vocabularies as equally communicative authorities of academic knowledge alongside written texts.Support from the Ottenberg Winans-Fellowship allows me to travel to my home countries where I can further develop this work as a dance performance ethnography that problematizes how transcultural communications within Global Black Scholarship are frequently de-privileged.I have also received support from the IAS School to present the beginnings of this work at the Tilting Axis 5 Conference: Beyond Trend: Decolonisation and Art Criticism at the Mémorial ACTe Museum in Guadeloupe
Zhuoya Yang – Public Health, Global Health
I am an undergraduate student in the Public-Global Health Major in Honor department. I will have an opportunity to study abroad this summer to Uganda with Prof. Amy Hagopian in the Health Service department. I will conduct qualitative research in several places in Uganda with the assistance of Prof. Amy to learn about the relationship between water and public health, with an emphasis on the impact brought by climate change. I intend to present my research result at the SPH Undergraduate Symposium. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will support my travel expense to Uganda.
2018 Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Recipients
Francis Abugbilla – International Studies (JSIS)
“I am a PhD student in International Studies at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. I research on conflict resolution and peacebuilding mechanisms in post-conflict societies. My primary field of concentration is peace, violence, and security with a secondary field in law, rights, and governance. My dissertation focusses on how post-conflict peacebuilding mechanisms affect the prospects of reconciliation in Africa. I am particularly interested in the tension that is created when states adopt multiple peacebuilding strategies such as retributive justice and truth and reconciliation commission concurrently in seeking reconciliation. What impact does the tension have on reconciliation? I am going to examine this question in Côte d’Ivoire since it adopted these two mechanisms at the same time after its second civil war. Thanks to the Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship, I will conduct my fieldwork in Côte d’Ivoire and interview Ivorian refugees in Ghana this summer.”
William Gochberg – Political Science
I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Washington. My research focuses on the politics of economic development, property rights to land, natural resource governance, and identity. My dissertation examines how land rights in sub-Saharan Africa are embedded in a broad web of social relationships, the ways in which landholders defend their land rights when they are threatened, and the local-level politics of natural resource extraction. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will help fund research in Uganda this summer and fall, where I will survey and interview landholders and policymakers.
Khatsini Simani – Senior Accounting
I’m an undergraduate Accounting and finance major who has had the opportunity to study Swahili this past year with Ms. Jacque Waita. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will enable me to extend my undergraduate research on financial literarcy and financial education programming to Kenya. This past year I conducted a local research study with Dr. Michelle Martin exploring the impact of an immersive literacy event themed around money on parent-child conversations on the topic. This upcoming school year I will broaden my research to explore financial literacy efforts for children and adolescents in Kenya and host a financial education-themed event based on Read-a-Rama. The goal of my project is to bring awareness to financial education efforts in Kenya, especially in the context of fast-changing individual, community, and international financing structures.
Rachel Geyer – Global Health
I am an MPH student within the Department of Global Health. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will help support my travel expenses in order work with LVCT Health, a Kenyan-based NGO. They work extensively on HIV education and care as well as youth advocacy and empowerment throughout Kenya. This experience will build upon my past experiences and help me to gain a broader understanding of operations within a large national NGO. My practicum will be focusing primarily on the policy and programing of gender-based violence affecting adolescent girls and young women through their DREAMS program. I will be working alongside their team in order to understand the breadth of work that goes into their programs.
Stephen Pope – Public Administration
With the help of the Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship, I will work in Mozambique with a non-governmental organization specializing in agricultural development. I will initially work in central Mozambique for a project called Agricultural Innovations (INOVA), which partners with farmers, businesses, and policymakers to explore ways to improve production and increase sales of key cash crops vital to Mozambique’s economy. I will conduct research on agricultural input distribution models that are cost-effective and accessible for rural smallholder farmers. In addition, I will support a program in northern Mozambique that is piloting business models to improve horticulture and poultry value chains for smallholder farmers.
2017 Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Recipients
David Aarons – Ethnomusicology
“Within a broader framework of the function of music in back-to-Africa movements, my PhD dissertation research centers on Rastafari, reggae music, and the politics of repatriating to and settling in Ethiopia. The primary objective of this research is to analyze the dynamic role music plays in the lives of Rastafarians who have migrated to Ethiopia from all over the world in the belief that Ethiopia is their Promised Land. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will help with my ongoing research in Ethiopia this summer when I will conduct follow-up questions with Ethiopian and repatriated musicians.”
Rebecca Brander – Epidemiology
“I am a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology within the School of Public Health. With support from the Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship, I will study the economic burden of severe illness in children in western Kenya. My project draws from epidemiologic and health economics methods to characterize the health sector and household costs of pediatric hospitalizations. Rich, comprehensive data on hospitalization costs are needed for cost-effectiveness analyses to maximize resources in resource-limited health systems, and for identifying opportunities to reduce health care expenditures that are catastrophic to households. This research will have implications for health policy development, poverty alleviation, and future African Studies research examining the societal burden of health costs in Sub-Saharan African countries.”
Sarah Dreier – Political Science
“I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Washington. My research and teaching focuses on comparative politics; African political development; religion and global politics; international human rights; histories of colonialism, race and global capitalism; law and society; and qualitative and quantitative research methods. My dissertation focuses on religion and political governance in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa and has been funded by the University of Washington, the Association for the Sociology of Religion and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).”
Katrin Fabian – Global Health
“I’m an MPH student in the Global Health department. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will help me pursue my MPH thesis project in global mental health in Liberia. My research will use qualitative and quantitative methods to elicit local idioms of mental distress. Mental health interventions that operate within cultural contexts recognize the strengths and established social support networks of communities rather than prescribing western notions of mental illness. The goal of this research is to inform mental health programming that incorporates local pathways to care and culturally salient idioms of mental distress. Thank you to the African Studies Program for helping me make this project a reality.”
Natasha Ludwig-Barron – Epidemiology
“As a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health, my research interests lie within the syndemic of HIV/AIDS, substance use, and gender inequity, with the goal of improving the health and wellbeing of communities. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will allow me to conduct preliminary research in Nairobi, Kenya with HIV partner notification service programs nested within needle exchange programs, to understand the barriers and facilitators in partner notification among persons who inject drugs (PWID). The research opportunity will help me establish my dissertation aims, allow me to apply for an NIH Diversity Supplement, and help me establish a career in developing sustainable health programs in Nairobi that address compound health issues.”
Alfred Osoti – Epidemiology
“The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will contribute towards my travel expenses for presentation of the results of my study on increasing male partner HIV testing during pregnancy in Kisumu, Kenya. My HIV research interest has been on prevention and elimination of Mother-to-Child HIV transmission in low resource settings by accessing, educating and testing male partners for HIV. In this study, we randomized women to home-based male partner education and HIV testing or standard of care, which was invitation for antenatal clinic-based testing. We further assessed the influence of male partner testing on maternal HIV retesting, as some women are likely to be HIV infected later in pregnancy. The overall goal is to reduce HIV burden in Africa by reducing new infections in pregnant women, their male partners and children. The findings of this study will be presented at the 9th International AIDS Society annual conference in Paris, France.”
Matthew Adeiza – Communications
My name is Matthew Adeiza, a PhD candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington in Seattle, where I study the impact of digital media on political campaigning in Sub-Saharan Africa. My dissertation research focuses on how presidential campaigns use digital media for campaigning in the context of ethnic politics that is so commonly associated with campaigning on the subcontinent. The research draws on theories in Science, Technology and Society, Communication, and Political Science. In 2016, I conducted a four-month study of the two presidential candidates in the 2016 Ghanaian election. More generally, I am interested in how elite communication strategies are influenced by, and influence, polarization, especially during election campaigns across different countries.
2016 Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Recipients
Sarah Yu – International Studies (JSIS)
“I am in my third year majoring in International Studies, Computer Science and Economics. I will use the Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship funds to support my upcoming research trip to Ghana. I will be traveling throughout Southern Ghana to research the current uses of mobile money, for personal and business uses, as well as barriers and hesitations of those who do not currently use these services. My interests are in using technology as a vehicle for social empowerment and economic mobility in developing countries. In particular, I am hoping to gain insight into improving and accelerating the uses of digital financial technologies such as mobile money and banking apps to promote financial inclusion in resource-constrained communities.”
Timothy Abt – International Studies (JSIS)
“I want to thank the African Studies Program at the Jackson School of International Studies for the opportunity that the Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship presents. A portion of my time at the University of Washington has been spent studying development in East Africa and Kiswahili. Now, after a minor in African Studies and 2 years of proficiency in Kiswahili, I am bound for Tanzania. This fellowship greatly supports academic studies and professional opportunities that I will explore in Tanzania. I will be studying the politics of ecotourism in Tanzania, one of the richest locations in the world in regards to natural resources.”
Meredith Bauer – English and Public Scholarship
“This grant will help fund field research in Zimbabwe for my dissertation project, which investigates four novelists who might be taken as representative of the Zimbabwean contribution to the African literary canon. The texts circulate in the world literary market, but are also engaged with Zimbabwean national history and identity. With this grant I will gain access to local literary circles and the Zimbabwe National Archives in order to understand the historical materialities, social networks, and cultural values impacting their production and reception. Exploring these texts as interstices of local and global forces will contribute to defining African studies worldwide.”
Shanna Scherbinske – Anthropology
“I’m interested in the effects of legal relief policies, such as refugee resettlement, on the lives of families who are subject to these systems. I focus on the experiences of Somalis who live in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, while they wait for visas that will allow them to move to the U.S. From past fieldwork, I know that a major theme for Somalis in Addis is a sense of being stuck in one place while waiting to move to another; thus, my work centers on recording and understanding the ways in which waiting profoundly shapes the lives of these migrants. The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will help fund my continued research with migrants in Ethiopia.”
Katherine Scherrer – Landscape Architecture
“The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship will contribute to my travel expenses for my field research in the Suswa Conservancy outside of Nairobi, Kenya. My landscape architecture thesis project focuses on co-creating a design for a sustainable children’s home with a school, community center and healing landscape for vulnerable Maasai children. The co-creation approach to the design process implies that the design and the project cannot be done without engagement from the local community in which the center will be built. This particular Maasai community has wanted to build a children’s home for a long time. The community has a high population of orphans, largely due to Maasai cultural practices of polygamy, which has resulted in associated impacts on the health of the vulnerable girls. The field research in Suswa includes presenting a model of the children’s home for the project to the community, doing informational interviews and site analysis, and conducting community workshops.”
Cynthia Simekha – Anthropology
My main project is to examine new forms of ‘gender-fluid’ households that are challenging and transforming the social structures of communities and redefining gender identities, roles and relationships in this period of intensifying AIDS epidemic. This work is unique internationally, as there is a deep tradition of denial around the historical significance of ‘gender fluidity’ in African traditional communities, especially in rural communities. This work seeks to answer core questions about the nature of demographic and social transformation under forces of deep environmental pressure. At the centre of this research is the rare subject of intimate lives of African women in Africa and in the Diaspora, bodies that overwhelmingly carry the greatest burden of disease in the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
This summer, I anticipate conducting a crucial pilot ethnographic research for eleven weeks in rural and urban western, central and coastal Kenya mainly to understand the ways the community is rethinking family relationships and households, which may/may not adhere to the long-standing family structures that are historically “acceptable”. I will also be analyzing how these new formations of family relationships and households balance between internal protection versus external risk vulnerability for its members it terms of health, access to social amenities, security, the right ‘to be’ and lead a well-fulfilling life.
2015 Fellowship Recipients
Patience Idegwu – Pre-Major Arts & Sciences
“I will be using the Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship to pay for my travels during the Ghana Study Abroad Program. During my time I will be traveling to rural and urban areas, therefore this scholarship will allow me to fulfill the capacity of my research. My plan is to look into how local newspapers, television and radio, as well as social media, are utilized as a means of attracting people’s attention. For example, while people in the US can put anything on YouTube, how do budding musicians in Ghana get their work to be known? As a marketing major, it is really important for me to know how to promote and advertise. Ghana is extremely big on entertainment, and my goal is to work for an entertainment company. As a result the scholarship will go directly to the traveling expenses, buying and observing different technologies used in Ghana, and also covering my lodging expenses needed to fulfill my research in the different locations. ”
Senayet Negusse – Speech and Hearing Sciences
“The Ottenberg-Winans Fellowship Fund will contribute to my community club, which I formed several years ago in my home. With this club I have invited bilingual children (primarily Hispanic and African) who are considered “developmentally delayed” or behind into my home for extra language and literacy help. Over the years I have discovered that many children of color (primarily African & Spanish speaking) are often put into classrooms with special needs. I intend to discover why this is the case and how to bridge the gap among African families and the education system. I have tried to educate these children in a different light by bringing in effective teaching strategies from all over the world. In the near future I will be able to conduct research from the observations I have made. Understanding the underlying reasons influencing the disproportionate representation and bridging the gap between families in special education is my goal. I hope to gain valuable information that will lead to me implementing a change in policy, which will benefit immigrants and minority children. Thank you for your support!”
Sheena Lahren – Masters student, Public Affairs
“During my research study abroad trip to Ghana I will be examining how middle school girls use information communication technologies (ICTs). I am primarily interested in the ways in which girls in Ghana communicate with each other and obtain information and how sex education efforts can reach this population through ICTs. While in Ghana, I will be collecting and analyzing data through field interviews. I hope to use my findings to inform a distribution strategy for a nonprofit project I am piloting in June 2016, Power2Girls. Power2Girls is working to distribute a proven solution for “sugar-daddy” awareness intervention in Ghana through classroom instruction and mobile technology. This study abroad experience will enable Power2Girls to understand who has access to the ICTS we are relying on and to what extent across Ghana, what our limitations will be as we scale up, and how we might want to rethink our model.”
Jocelyn Moon – Ph.D. Student in Ethnomusicology
“The Ottenberg-Winans fellowship will contribute to my dissertation field research in Nyamapanda, Northeastern Zimbabwe during the 2016 calendar year. My dissertation project focuses on issues of sustainability as they relate to music cultures associated with an instrument called matepe, a marginalized type of mbira historically played by the Buja, Korekore and Sena-Tonga peoples of Northeastern Zimbabwe and adjacent areas across the border in Mozambique. I investigate the ways in which matepe players adapt to changing social, religious and technological contexts, including the emerging presence of matepe music on YouTube and a growing international audience of online learners. Although culture-bearers in Nyamapanda have no means of accessing and directly participating in these online spaces, I seek to understand how online resource sharing and dialogue contributes to the vitality of matepe music within Zimbabwe. Thus far, online activity has led to the formation of on-the-ground collaborative networks between matepe players in urban and rural areas and aided in the distribution of archival recordings of matepe music collected in the 1930s-1970s.”
David Aarons – Ph.D. Student in Ethnomusicology
“While much scholarly attention has been given to the relationship between the Caribbean and West Africa, this research focuses on the lived experiences of Caribbean and Ethiopian reggae musicians in East Africa. This research explores the growth and spread of reggae in Ethiopia with attention to the ways in which reggae music functions as a middle ground for repatriated Rastafari and native Ethiopians. Since Emperor Haile Selassie granted land in Ethiopia to Africans in the West in the mid-twentieth century, members of the Rastafari movement have been settling in Ethiopia in fulfillment of a desire to return home. Facing challenges in gaining citizenship and being viewed ambivalently by some Ethiopians, Rastafari have used music as a means of bridging the divide between themselves and Ethiopians.”
2014 Fellowship Recipients
Ashley Andelian – Undergraduate student in the Department of Linguistics
Britta Anson – PhD student in the Department of History
Cynthia Simekha – Undergraduate student in Public Health with minor in Global Health
and Geography
Eloho Basikoro – PhD student in the Department of Geography
Matthew Adeiza – PhD student in the Department of Communication
Sarah Dreier – PhD student in the Department of Political Science
Sarah Kane – Undergraduate student in the School of Art
Ailene Umayam – Undergraduate student UW Bothell – Nursing
2013 Fellowship Recipients
Daniel E Coslett – Graduate Student in Built Environment
Daniel Low – Graduate Student in the Medical School
Jade Graddy – Undergraduate Student in the Department of Linguistics
Vijay Narayan – Graduate Student in the Department of Global Health
Questions about the fellowship or the application process should be directed to: africa1@u.washington.edu.
To make a contribution to the Ottenberg-Winans fund, please click here.