Rising Latino studies scholars named IUPLR/UIC Mellon Fellows

Seven students working in humanities comprise the 2020-2021 cohort of a national fellowship program designed to mentor Latino studies scholars as they complete their doctoral research and improve their job-market readiness.

Presented by the Inter-University Program for Latino Research, or IUPLR, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, each fellow will receive a yearly stipend of $25,000, a faculty mentor in Latino studies, monthly teleconferences with other fellows and opportunities to present their research.

The IUPLR/UIC Mellon Fellows Program has been supported for the past six years with two grants from the Mellon Foundation totaling over $1.6 million.

“We are grateful to the support of the Andrew Mellon Foundation, which has allowed us to support 36 fellows working in Latino humanities studies,” said principal investigator of the grants Maria de los Angeles Torres, UIC professor of Latin American and Latino studies and former executive director of IUPLR. “Especially in times of great uncertainty, the humanities make important contributions to rethinking our world.”

The latest honorees, who have completed their fifth year of doctoral studies and attend an IUPLR member institution, are:

• Óscar Daniel Campo Becerra, a Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic literary and cultural studies at UIC
• Allison Guess, a Ph.D. candidate in earth and environmental sciences (human geography) at the City University of New York
• Alana de Hinojosa, a Ph.D. candidate in Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California-Los Angeles
• Alexandrea Pérez Allison, a Ph.D. candidate in English and a graduate portfolio student in Mexican American and Latina/o studies at the University of Texas at Austin
• Ana Cristina Perry, a Ph.D. candidate in art history at the City University of New York
• Rosanna Simmons, a Ph.D. candidate in Chicana/o and Central American studies at the University of California-Los Angeles
• Alberto Wilson III, a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Houston

To learn more about the fellows and their research, visit the IUPLR/UIC Mellon Fellows Program website.

The Inter-University Program for Latino Research, currently based at the University of Houston Center for Mexican American Studies, consists of 21 university-based Latino research centers that aim to promote policy-focused research and advance the Latino intellectual presence in the U.S. Founded in 1983, the group supports research and programs that foster greater understanding of U.S. Latinos in politics, economics, culture, art, history and immigration.