Congratulations to our award recipients.
During the 2026 Spring Funding Round, the Simpson Center invited proposals for Collaborative Research Projects, Events, and Conferences; Co-Taught Course Development Awards; Whiteley Center Faculty Writing Retreats; and Graduate Research Clusters. We are pleased to announce the faculty and graduate student recipients of these awards.
Calls for proposals and nominations for the 2026 Fall Funding Round will be posted in mid-August with a deadline of November 6th.
Collaborative Research Projects, Events, and Conferences
7th Triennial Conference of the Association for Latin American Art
Jennifer Baez (Assistant Professor, School of Art + Art History + Design), Ileana Rodríguez-Silva (Associate Professor, History), Adam Warren (Professor, History)
Consciousness Hub
Sara Goering (Professor, Philosophy), Monika Kaup (Professor, English)
Horn of Africa Initiative, Phase II
Christopher Tounsel (Associate Professor, History), Joel Walker (Associate Professor, History)
New Collaborations in Critical Sport Studies
M. Aziz (Assistant Professor, American Ethnic Studies), Ron Krabill (Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Bothell)
Political Software: Mapping Digital Worlds From Below
Sucheta Ghoshal (Assistant Professor, Human Centered Design & Engineering), Erin McElroy (Associate Professor, Geography)
Relational Memory Studies
Jason Groves (Associate Professor, German Studies), Liora Halperin (Professor, History)
Transforming Knowledge-Making Practices through Research on Equity-Oriented and Antiracist Writing Program Initiatives across the UW
Tabitha Espina (Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Tacoma), Stephanie Kerschbaum (Professor, English)
Translating Colonialisms
Nazry Bahrawi (Assistant Professor, Asian Languages & Literature), Rick Bonus (Professor, American Ethnic Studies), Jenna Grant (Associate Professor, Anthropology), Judith Henchy (Librarian, Southeast Asian Studies), Celia Lowe (Professor, Jackson School of International Studies), Ileana Rodríguez-Silva (Associate Professor, History)
Visualizing Nuclear Histories
Diana Flores Ruíz (Assistant Professor, Cinema & Media Studies), Sasha Su-Ling Welland (Professor, Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)
Co-Taught Course Development Awards
Artificial Intelligence as Culture: Technology, Colonialism, and Inequality
Jamaal Muwwakkil (Assistant Professor, Anthropology), Marieke van Eijk (Associate Teaching Professor, Anthropology)
"Celebrate Asia" Gateway Course for the Diversity of Asian Languages and Literature
Nazry Bahrawi (Assistant Professor, Asian Languages & Literature), Heidi Pauwels (Professor, Asian Languages & Literature)
Fascism
Laurie Marhoefer (Professor, History), Ellwood Wiggins (Professor, German Studies)
Global Horror and the Cinematic Monstrous
Jennifer M. Bean (Associate Professor, Cinema & Media Studies), Ungsan Kim (Assistant Professor, Asian Languages & Literature)
The Berlin Stories: City of Art, Media and Transformation
André Schütze (Assistant Teaching Professor, German Studies), S. Kye Terrasi (Teaching Professor, German Studies)
Whiteley Center Faculty Writing Retreats
Connective Experiments in Media and Visuality
Lauren Berliner (Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Bothell), Temi Odumuso (Assistant Professor, Information School), Golden Owens (Assistant Professor, Cinema & Media Studies), Daniela Rosner (Professor, Human Centered Design & Engineering)
Plurifeminisms Across Abya Yala
Michelle Habell-Pallan (Professor, Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies), Christine (Cricket) Keating (Associate Professor, Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies), Dian Million (Associate Professor, American Indian Studies), Monica Rojas-Stewart (Assistant Professor, Dance)
Transforming Knowledge-Making Practices through Research on Equity-Oriented and Antiracist Writing Program Initiatives across the UW
Tabitha Espina (Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Tacoma), Silvia Ferreira (Associate Teaching Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Bothell), Jonathan Isaac (Assistant Teaching Professor, English), LeAnne Laux-Bachand (Teaching Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Tacoma), Candice Rai (Professor, English), Neil Simpkins (Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Bothell)
Surveillance and State Power; Resistance and Care; and Storytelling
M. Aziz (Assistant Professor, American Ethnic Studies), Ching-In Chen (Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Bothell), Jenna Grant (Associate Professor, Anthropology), Laurie Marhoefer (Professor, History), Brie McLemore (Assistant Professor, Political Science)
Community-Building, Systemic Change, and Language Justice in Higher Education
Angélica Amezcua (Assistant Professor, Spanish & Portuguese Studies), Nazry Bahrawi (Assistant Professor, Asian Languages & Literature), Suhanthie Motha (Associate Professor, English), Cristina Sánchez-Martín (Assistant Professor, English), Eduardo Viana da Silva (Teaching Professor, Spanish & Portuguese Studies), víctor yáñez-lazcano (Assistant Professor, Art + Art History + Design)
Utopic Dreams of a Mythical Past: Interrogating the Racial and Gendered Fantasies of US Empire
Erin McElroy (Associate Professor, Geography), Linh Thủy Nguyễn (Associate Professor, American Ethnic Studies), LeiLani Nishime (Professor, Communication), Amanda Swarr (Professor, Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)
Graduate Research Clusters
Technologies of Settler Governance & Global Indigenous Response
Ashfaq Ahmed (Jackson School of International Studies), Siddharth Bhogra (English)
Classics, Medieval, and Early Modern Studies Graduate Research Cluster (CMEMS)
Brianna Davis (English), Annie Dunn (Information School)
Building Bridges, Resisting Borders
Haley Chavez (School of Music), Yasmine Gómez (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)
Transnational Filipinx Diaspora Studies Graduate Research Cluster
Jamelah Jacob (History), Paul Jason Perez (Information School)
Indigenous Writing Praxis
Seratha Largie (Social Work), Natalie Vaughan-Wynn (Geography)
Asia Across Disciplines
Tristan Ferry (Jackson School of International Studies), Dylan Plung (History)
Collaborations in the Environmental Humanities
Jess Cavalari (History), Molly Porter (English)
Race, Privacy, and Sociotechnical Infrastructures
Saba Fatima (Built Environments), Lubna Razaq (Human-Centered Design & Engineering), Amy Xiao (Human-Centered Design & Engineering)
Comparative Rural Criticism
April Tong (Near & Middle Eastern Studies), Zhifan Sheng (Asian Languages & Literature)
Digital Humanities Reading & Research Cluster (DHRRC)
Nikoloz Nadirashvili (Art + Art History + Design), Xinyue Yu (Asian Languages & Literature
Note: This article was updated in August 2026 to correct the title of a project lead.