Student News

Spring/Summer 2024

It was a busy spring and summer season in CSER’s MA program in American Studies. We’ve been grateful as always to hear from and check in with our alums, and especially to follow their accomplishments.

We had four recent graduates start in Ph.D. programs this fall. Tahani Almujahid (’24) will carry on research on Arab-American youth subcultures in the American Cultures Ph.D. program at University of Michigan. Hannah Bruno (’23) will do research on Black public health history in Columbia’s own History Ph.D. program. Sav Evans (’23) will research the political culture of incarcerated people in the Ph.D. program in Modern Thought at Stanford. Mutale Nkonde (’24) will be writing about online radicalization in the Ph.D. program in Digital Humanities at the University of Cambridge in the U.K.

A current student, Cecilia Wright has started an archival position at the Center for Brooklyn History, and has an essay forthcoming in the Missouri Historical Society magazine Gateway (Fall 2024 issue). Victoria Dadet (’24) has begun working as Learning and Engagement Assistant at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Gabriella Ferrigne (’22) has become a staff writer at Salon.com. Joseph Zarka (’23) has entered the Executive MBA program at Rutgers University. Richard Zama-Diaz (’22) has started teaching at the Browning School in Manhattan. Daniel Pai (’20) won a grant from the Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund to conduct a human rights project entitled “Centering Indigenous Taiwan: Sharing Stories and Amplifying Native Voices.” And May Niiya (’24) became the Assistant Director of our own Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race!

We’re also lucky that the program starts with an A, so that photos of graduation often feature our students right up front!

Fall 2023

It has been a typically busy fall in the M.A. program here at CSER. Below you will find a few items of interest!

In October, M.A. students May Niiya, Victoria Dadet, and Megan Waldau Chang attended the American Studies Association conference in Montreal. All three were impressed by the political and intellectual urgency of the proceedings, but not impressed by poutine.

Becca Young published a seminar paper as a long-form essay in Blood Knife magazine, entitled “WE’RE SIMILAR. WE’RE COMPATIBLE. WE’RE PERFECT.” The essay explores Chat GPT, contemporary dating dynamics, and internet feminism.

Mutale Nkonde participated in Senator Schumer’s Insight Panel on Privacy and Liability this semester. She testified about how to protect Black and other negatively racialized groups from their data being used against them by AI firms that focus on the development of policing and other surveillance technologies.

Also, in alumni news: 2019 MA grad Maj. Jose A. Martinez became the Chief of Training for the United States Military Academy. He is responsible for all training (military, academic, compliance, at government-mandated) at West Point.