April 8, 2026
The Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration (RITM) recently concluded its first Undergraduate Fellows program, welcoming a select cohort of Yale College seniors to share and develop their senior thesis research. Launched in October 2025, the program was designed to strengthen the Center’s engagement with undergraduate students while creating a collaborative space for interdisciplinary exchange.
Through March 2026, Fellows gathered monthly over dinner in the RITM building to present their work, exchange feedback, and engage in thoughtful dialogue across fields. Each participant delivered a formal presentation on their research and received a stipend in recognition of their commitment to the program.
The inaugural cohort explored a wide range of topics:
- Koby Chen: Bodies Adrift: Photography as Witness and Colonial Visual Regimes through Paolo Pellegrin's “Desperate Crossings”
- Joshua Ching: Untangling the ‘Upena: Mapping Hawai‘i's Digital Carceral Geographies
- Owen Curtin: Flowing to the Cloud: Data Centers, Water Infrastructure, and the Remaking of Resource Relations
- Aden Gonzales: “Long, Cold Winter”: Resistance and Rebellion in New Haven's High Schools, 1967-1968
- Alex Guzman Caceres: A Reclamation of Central American Mothers' Agency in Domestic Care Work
- Leander He: Irrealis & Subjunctivity in Roro: A Crosslinguistic & Diachronic Approach
- Meera Mishra: Healing Across the Pacific: Medicine, Indenture, and Pluralism in Indo-Fijian and Pasifika Worlds
- Sadie Turner: Land Protections for Historic African American Settlement Communities on the Coastline of South Carolina
Reflecting on the experience, Curtin shared, “RITM is a low-stakes but high-engagement place to think through your thesis while getting feedback. It was also just a really incredible community to be a part of.” Sadie Turner similarly emphasized the program’s impact on her research process, stating, “the process of making a 15 min presentation helped with mapping out my analysis, which actually allowed me to write the paper. I got closer with many individuals in the group which I am grateful for. I also got so much new perspective on people's thesis topics that I never would have learned!” Alex Guzman Caceres emphasized the creative side of the project, stating, “It helped me think about my thesis more creatively, especially because everyone else prompted me to allow myself to get creative with creative writing and other visual elements.”
By fostering rigorous scholarship alongside a strong sense of community, the Undergraduate Fellows program marks an exciting new addition to RITM’s support of undergraduate research.
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