2017–18 Fellows
Alican Çamcı’s output includes works for small and large ensembles, solo instrumental music, and electro-acoustic compositions. A native of Istanbul, Turkey, he studied composition with Michael Hersch at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Currently, he is a PhD candidate in Music Composition at the University of Chicago, studying with Augusta Read Thomas, Anthony Cheung, and Marta Ptaszyńska.
Bill Hutchison is a PhD candidate in English. Bill writes about kinds of life and being at the intersection of literature, science, and culture. His dissertation looks at the deeply entangled relationship between humans and machines, how difficult it is to understand one without the other, and what it means to feel things about robots.
Paul Jerger is a PhD student at the Institute for Molecular Engineering. Working with Professor David Awschalom, his research explores the control of individual electrons trapped in single-atom holes in diamond crystals. These single electrons, if properly engineered, can be used as the basis of innovative new computing and information technologies, as well as ultra-precise environmental sensors. In parallel with his research, he is interested in improving the practice of scientific research, science education for both kids and adults, and how scientific findings can be more clearly and accurately conveyed to the public. He received a BS in Physics from Harvey Mudd College.
Clara del Junco is a PhD candidate in Chemistry, working with Professor Suriyanarayanan Vaikuntanathan on non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, an area of theory that can help us to understand the physics of everything from how birds and bacteria flock to how to engineer and control self-assembling materials. In addition to her academic research, Clara is involved in electronic music and social justice projects and is interested in how these three communities can learn from one another, both in terms of creative/research processes and efforts to be accessible and inclusive.
Frances Mendes Levitin is a second-year MFA candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at University of Chicago. Her art-making practice incorporates scavenged materials into immersive installations and performances. Materials are recovered from her local environment and instrumentalized into audio-visual sculpture, projection, and sonic information. By re-engineering scavenged materials she disregards consumer value systems and aims to elevate materials’ secondary and tertiary lives.
Nicole Erin Morse is a PhD candidate in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies, writing a dissertation on selfie aesthetics in photography, video, and film. Nicole has also done research on race and gender in reality television, streaming television, and pornography, and has a background in documentary and experimental film production. At the University of Chicago, Nicole is an organizer with Graduate Students United, and outside of the University, Nicole works with the LGBTQ prison abolitionist group Black and Pink: Chicago.
Agnes Mondragón is a PhD student in the Anthropology Department. Her research focuses on the forms and processes that mediate violence in Mexico in the context of the war on drugs. Her work is particularly concerned with how the mass-mediated fiction—TV, film, and literature—and religious practices that have emerged out of this context contribute to give a specific shape and moral quality to drug violence in the public imagination. Additionally, she is broadly interested in the visual, aural, spatial, and bodily aesthetics of religiosity and their relation to (historically changing) forms of engaging with the divine.
Dana Simmons is a PhD candidate in Neurobiology at the University of Chicago, and works in Professor Christian Hansel’s laboratory. Her research focuses on how autism affects communication between neurons in the cerebellum. As a complement to her scientific research, Dana explores the fascinating branched neurons inside the brain by combining her microscopy studies with digital art. She earned her BA in Biology and Spanish Languages & Literature, and a minor in Dance, with honors from Boston University.