CAAAS Grad Student Award Winners

2025 - 2026 CAAAS Grad Student Award Winners

Clintia Simon

PhD Student, Department of Communication, College of Communication, Media, Design and Information (CMDI)

Clintia Simon is a PhD student in Communication whose research focuses on identity negotiation among Caribbean individuals across diaspora and homeland contexts. Her work examines how language, race, nationality, and belonging are interactionally constructed in everyday communication. As a scholar grounded in both Caribbean and United States contexts, she brings a transnational, interpretative, and critical lens to questions of migration, identity, and intercultural interactions. She is committed to both ac...

Dennis Okeke

PhD Student, Department of Journalism, College of Communication, Media, Design and Information (CMDI)

Dennis Ekwemnachukwu Okeke is a Journalism Studies Ph.D. student at the Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØ, and a critical multidisciplinary communication and media scholar. Using critical theories, he interrogates how racial (mostly global anti-Blackness), gendered, sexual, and religious (Catholic) politics occur in digital news spaces (and other journalism platforms) across postcolonial African nations and the United States. A Black queer feminist cis-gender scholar-activist, Dennis’s works have been publishe...

Malick Lo

MA Student, Department of French and Italian, College of Arts & Sciences

Malick Lo is a graduate student in the Department of French and Italian at the Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØ, pursuing an M.A. in French, while completing a Master’s in African and Postcolonial Studies at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal. His research explores African literature and cinema, with particular attention to Francophone and Ajami textualities and the cultural politics of representation. He is a podcaster and student filmmaker working at the intersection of moving images, digital hum...

Tyreis Hunte

MFA Student, Department of Theatre & Dance, College of Arts & Sciences
CAAAS Graduate Fellows

Tyreis Hunte is a Creole Amazônido interdisciplinary artist and creative director birthed in Guyana, South America. Their work is embedded in the understanding and the connections of global indigenous cultures and their embodied philosophies. Tyreis is a Davis World Scholar and alum of the United World College, Changshu China, receiving their Bachelor of Arts in Dance and Asian Studies with focus on Movement Therapy from St. Olaf College.Tyreis is keen on the historic as well as contemporary contributions o...

Nicholas Felder

DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts), Music Composition, College of Music

Nicholas Felder (he/him) is a Black queer artist, composer-vocalist, activist, and educator who creates art around identity, communal joy and healing, and youth empowerment. He builds community in artmaking, unlocking truths around self-identity, and creates a space for embodied expression. Nicholas has led educational programs and workshopswith numerous arts organizations, such asthe Detroit Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, the Denver Young Artists Orchestra, and Sphinx Organization. He lo...

Kathryn Sullivan

PhD Student, Department of Environmental Studies, College of Arts & Sciences
CAAAS Graduate Fellows

Kathryn is an environmental justice researcher and PhD Candidate whose work centers on how climate change shapes mental health, well-being, and inequity in vulnerable communities. Her research takes a community-engaged, humanitarian approach, partnering with local stakeholders to understand how environmental stressors (e.g., climate variability, food insecurity, discrimination) affect psychological health and daily livelihoods.Kathryn has led and contributed to projects on neighborhood health inequities in ...

Nandi Pointer

PhD Student, Department of Media Studies, College of Communication, Media, Design and Information (CMDI)2024-2025 CAAAS Alice Cleora Reeves Endowed Dissertation Awardee
CAAAS Graduate FellowsCAAAS Doctoral Fellows

Nandi Pointer is a PhD Candidate in Media Studies at the Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØ. A former journalist and TV producer, Pointer studies questions about media, race, and identity. Incorporating writing and documentary filmmaking, her dissertation examines how and why Black men leave the U.S. to teach English in Southeast Asia and the Middle East and what their experiences illuminate about the global dynamics of race and racism. A recipient of the 2025 IAMCR Stuart Hall Award and the 2025 Dissertation C...