������Ƶ

������Ƶ College is celebrating the $99,000 renewal from the Mellon Foundation in support of College’s Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program.  

“The grant is geared towards graduate school exploration and to give students a taste of what doing a PhD in the humanities would be like. And the Mellon Foundation hopes that this program leads to more professors who embrace polyvocality and are interested in sharing different perspectives,” says Elias Saba, professor of religious studies and history and program coordinator. Saba, along with Amy Onstot and Philosophy Professor Julian Rios Acuña, guides and supports the fellows throughout the program.

The students apply for the program in the spring of their second year and then work on a large research project with an individual mentor from the following summer through graduation. Projects range in disciplines from classics and art history to gender, women’s, and sexuality studies. Saba explains that it’s atypical for such a large grant to be focused on the humanities, which is part of what makes this program special.  

Apart from their research projects, all the fellows meet with Saba three times a month to discuss more of the generals about doing research, life in the academy, and prep for the conference they all attend.  

Saba himself is a full-circle fellow who joined the program as an undergraduate at Cornell University. He says, “This program is what sold me on doing a PhD and becoming a professor. I got so much from it, and I wanted to give back in some way. And the program has created so much community and so many different spaces for me.”

The current fellows likewise find the program incredibly rewarding. Lily Piede ’26, a history and French major, is completing her project about Catherine de Medici’s relationship with bureaucratic institutions, like the Parlement de Paris, throughout her regency under the guidance of Professor David Harrison. She reflects, “Through the MMUF, I have come to see myself not only as a student but as a scholar making an original contribution to my field. I set the direction of my research, exploring topics that bridge my interests in French, history, and politics. Earning a PhD and pursuing a career in academia once felt like distant dreams, but the fellowship has turned them into very real possibilities for my future.”

Learn more about the .