Fellows

A curator, educator + digital maven, Amy Andrieux has cultivated culture programs for Red Bull, MTV World, TRACE, and more. Driven by Design Justice, Amy is working to decolonize Black narratives...

A curator, educator + digital maven, Amy Andrieux has cultivated culture programs for Red Bull, MTV World, TRACE, and more. Driven by Design Justice, Amy is working to decolonize Black narratives via cultural + creative placemaking and participatory design. As an educator, Amy engages students at the intersection of social impact + art & design at Parsons School of Design, has crafted K-12 curricula for Verizon Innovation/NYU Media Lab ed-tech apps, and is a former mentor at New Inc, New Museum’s art/technology incubator. At The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA), where Amy is the Executive Director + Chief Curator, she uplifts the cultural breadth of Africa + the Diaspora via exhibitions, interactive learning, and advocacy. Rooted in social justice, she serves on the Governors Island Community Advisory Committee, Prospect Park Alliance’s Community Committee, and is a board member of New Yorkers for Culture & Arts, and Downtown Brooklyn Arts Alliance. In 2020, Amy received a Trailblazer Award from The 400 Years of African-American History Commission and in 2023 received a proclamation from NYC Council Speaker Adams for her work to bridge the African diaspora in NYC. Amy is also the founder of the Arts Alliance of Africa + Diaspora, a global network of Black arts leaders creating sustainable community solutions. Currently, she is developing an immersive, historical fiction film series, which is supported by WarnerMedia Onefifty, that explores the sordid history between the United States and Haiti through the lens of a semi-autobiographical, intergenerational family drama.

Sean Jacobs is a professor of international affairs at The New School and publisher of Africa Is a Country. He was born and grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. His project focuses on developing...

Sean Jacobs is a professor of international affairs at The New School and publisher of Africa Is a Country. He was born and grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. His project focuses on developing a handbook to provide foundational resources for research on decolonizing international affairs and reshape how the discipline is taught.

Emma Park is Assistant Professor in the Department of Historical Studies. Her work sits at the intersection of histories of technology, capitalism, and empire. Her book, forthcoming with Duke...

Emma Park is Assistant Professor in the Department of Historical Studies. Her work sits at the intersection of histories of technology, capitalism, and empire. Her book, forthcoming with Duke University Press, is titled: Infrastructural Attachments: Austerity, Sovereignty, and Expertise in Kenya. She will use her time as a Mellon Fellow to make progress on her second book project, tentatively titled: Dispossession and Ecologies of Debt: An Environmental History of the Fiscal State in Kenya. This book traces the connections among regimes of debt and ecological transformations over the long-twentieth century. Specifically, it explores the dynamic interplay among ecology, racialized and classed processes of expropriation, and the changing contours of the state’s revenue regime.

Nadia’s teaching explores the power of art and design when historically oppressive systems are disrupted and experiences of people of color are centered. During her ten years as full-time faculty...

Nadia’s teaching explores the power of art and design when historically oppressive systems are disrupted and experiences of people of color are centered. During her ten years as full-time faculty, she has collaborated on a range of university-wide social justice and access initiatives, and is continually impressed by the continuum of students who hold The New School accountable to social justice values. Nadia’s year as a Mellon Fellow will be her first without a significant faculty leadership role. The work she has learned the most from has been collaborating with Mayan and Mixteca artisan groups of women in Mexico to create horizontal design processes, collectively developing a framework for the Parsons Scholars Program through which NYC high school students explore art, design and social justice within a curriculum that centers the experiences of people of color from low income backgrounds, and co-creating a space for radical mama educators and our children through NYCoRE (NY Collective of Radical Educators). Currently, her creative practice is grounded in family history research as a practice of freedom, healing and reconnecting with ancestors while reclaiming histories of liberation and resistance which have been erased by systems of white supremacy.

Genevieve Yue is an associate professor of culture and media and director of the Screen Studies program at the New School. She is author of Girl Head: Feminism and Film Materiality (Fordham University...

Genevieve Yue is an associate professor of culture and media and director of the Screen Studies program at the New School. She is author of Girl Head: Feminism and Film Materiality (Fordham University Press, 2021). Her Mellon-supported research investigates the material and racialized history of Hollywood in California’s Owens Valley, where the extraction of silver, water, and film image have overlapped to indelibly shape the film industry in the early 20th century.

Aditi Dey is a PhD candidate in Politics at the New School for Social Research. Her doctoral research looks at the politics of work in India, examining histories of technology, labor and urbanization...

Aditi Dey is a PhD candidate in Politics at the New School for Social Research. Her doctoral research looks at the politics of work in India, examining histories of technology, labor and urbanization. Focusing on Bangalore, a city known for its high-tech entrepreneurs and tech pundits, she studies the ways in which longer histories of state led manufacturing of tech hardware during the peak of the decolonization era, vernacular practices of technological work, and 'low-tech' racialized labor of caste oppressed communities, underwrite contemporary technocapitalist imaginaries and tech-cities. Through her work she aims to understand the long term effects of decline of stable blue-collared work and deindustrialization and its consequences on politics in India and the Global South. Aditi draws on a range of archives, ethnographic practice and oral histories to carry out her research.

Chantel T. Ebrahimi is a Clinical Psychology PhD Candidate at The New School for Social Research (NSSR). She completed her MA in Psychology with a Concentration in Mental Health and Substance...

Chantel T. Ebrahimi is a Clinical Psychology PhD Candidate at The New School for Social Research (NSSR). She completed her MA in Psychology with a Concentration in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Counseling at NSSR and completed her BS in Psychobiology at UCLA. Her research interests span the intersection of development, trauma, and substance use in communities of color. Chantel has focused her research on racial trauma and substance use outcomes among ethnoracially minoritized adolescents and young adults as well as researching PTSD+SUD treatment outcomes. During her doctoral studies, she was selected as a fellow for the R25 Translational Research Training in Addictions for Underrepresented Groups (TRACC) program where she studied the impact of historical trauma on polysubstance use outcomes among Black young adults. As a Mellon Fellow, her proposed research will examine the associations of historical trauma, contemporary racism, posttraumatic stress, and polysubstance use among Black young adults.

Julián Gómez-Delgado is a PhD candidate in Sociology and Historical Studies at The New School for Social Research. His dissertation explores the technopolitics of privatization and the demise...

Julián Gómez-Delgado is a PhD candidate in Sociology and Historical Studies at The New School for Social Research. His dissertation explores the technopolitics of privatization and the demise of ‘public goods’ in Colombia. He studies the assemblage and unraveling of banking and telecommunication infrastructures. He also writes about politics and social protests in Latin America. As a Mellon Fellow, he will explore how subaltern peasants, indigenous and Afro-Colombian groups, along with public sector workers, reacted to, adapted, and contested the incremental dismantling of public infrastructures. Through this research, he aims to study how privatization processes shape social relations of marginalization and inequality and how marginalized people respond in turn.

Allan M. Hillani is a Brazilian Ph.D. candidate in the philosophy department of the New School for Social Research in New York. He works on the intersection between political philosophy and contemporary...

Allan M. Hillani is a Brazilian Ph.D. candidate in the philosophy department of the New School for Social Research in New York. He works on the intersection between political philosophy and contemporary social theory, mobilizing new materialisms, critical theory, and the ontological turn of anthropology to put into question the basic tenets of Western political thought. His dissertation, “The Spell of the Leviathan,” engages with non-Western conceptions and practices of collective power in order to propose a critique of political fetishism, the process through which the relationality of power and State institutions is disguised by modern notions and practices of property, utility, autonomy, and objectivity. He is also a translator and holds a master's degree in theory and philosophy of law from the State University of Rio de Janeiro and a bachelor’s degree in law from the Federal University of Paraná.

Jochen Schmon is a PhD candidate in Politics at the New School for Social Research. He studies the history of political thought, critical theory, and racial capitalism as well as the various...

Jochen Schmon is a PhD candidate in Politics at the New School for Social Research. He studies the history of political thought, critical theory, and racial capitalism as well as the various forms of contestation that have emerged against it, from abolitionist politics and the Black Radical Tradition to movements for decolonization. In his dissertation, he interrogates the conceptual history of slavery with a special focus on the discursive resonances of abolitionist politics in the emerging feminist, anarchist, and communist imaginaries of the 19th century. As a Mellon Fellow, he will specifically research the translation of ancient Greek and Roman notions of authority into modern conceptions of race, gender, and class. Before his PhD studies, he worked as a theory curator for the Literature Forum at Berlin’s Bertolt Brecht House. He was also part of the action art collective Center for Political Beauty at Maxim Gorki Theater of Berlin with whom he initiated various public interventions into the lethal border politics of the German government and the European Union as well as against far-right leaders in Germany.

Andrea Patricia Llinás Vahos has a BA in anthropology from Magdalena University, a Master in Public Administration from Cornell University, and an MPhil/third-year PhD candidate in the Urban...

Andrea Patricia Llinás Vahos has a BA in anthropology from Magdalena University, a Master in Public Administration from Cornell University, and an MPhil/third-year PhD candidate in the Urban and Public Policy program at The New School. Her scholarship is currently developing as a professor of anthropology at Magdalena University in Santa Marta, Colombia, a researcher at the Center for Caribbean Thinking, and a policy designer specializing in gender theory and practice, with emphasis on critical public policy, with more than a decade of experience working around the ongoing search for alternatives to imprisonment. Her academic-activist positioning is grounded in critical theory, abolitionism, decolonial feminism, antiracism, and queer politics. Her dissertation intends to analyze the features of recidivism prevention policy with a gender focus.

Alicia Grullón is an artist and activist whose work uses performance and self-portraiture to critique the politics of presence, advocating for the inclusion of marginalized communities in political...

Alicia Grullón is an artist and activist whose work uses performance and self-portraiture to critique the politics of presence, advocating for the inclusion of marginalized communities in political and social spheres. Grullón's exhibitions have been showcased at Mead Museum of Art, Bronx Museum of the Arts, BRIC House for Arts and Media, El Museo del Barrio, and Columbia University. Her work has earned her grants from the Puffin Foundation, Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of New York, and Franklin Furnace Archives. Grullón has completed prestigious residencies at the Hemispheric Institute for Politics and Performance at NYU, Center for Book Arts, and the Bronx Museum of Arts AIM program. Her work has been critically acclaimed in publications such as Hyperallergic, ArtNet News, New York Times, and Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory. She is the recipient of the 2019 Colene Brown Art Prize and the 2020-2022 Walentas Fellowship at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. Grullón holds a BFA from TISCH at New York University, an MFA from the State University of New York at New Paltz, and has pursued doctoral coursework in Art and Art Education at Columbia University's Teacher’s College. She is a key organizer of the People’s Cultural Plan (PCP), addressing inadequacies in New York City's cultural policy. Her legislative art project, PERCENT FOR GREEN, focuses on climate change and environmental injustices in the Bronx, resulting in a green bill created with Bronx residents. Grullón has presented this project at esteemed venues, including the Annual Art Historians Association conference in London, Creative Time Summit, and the American Museum of Natural History. In 2014, she collaborated with Bronx residents to create Percent for Green (PFG), a bill modeled after the Percent for Art initiative, aiming to allocate 1% of construction budgets with city funding to support grassroots environmental justice groups in frontline communities across NYC. Through public conversations, workshops, and community events, Grullón will campaign to pass a Percent for Green Bill for climate change education, mitigation, and resilience, particularly in BIPOC neighborhoods, highlighting the critical role of community-led initiatives and green spaces in addressing systemic environmental and social inequities.

Aditi is a south-Asian urban planner, practicing across the U.S., and in Mumbai. Aditi grew up in the suburbs of Mumbai, in a low-income incremental housing project for 21 years, which deeply...

Aditi is a south-Asian urban planner, practicing across the U.S., and in Mumbai. Aditi grew up in the suburbs of Mumbai, in a low-income incremental housing project for 21 years, which deeply influenced her belief in stable and affordable co-operative housing. With the lived experiences of two decades, and as a trained community architect and urbanist, Aditi works with non-profit organizations in Mumbai, Delhi, New York, and Jersey, to build political agency and self-determination in communities that are historically undermined in urban planning processes.

Aditi works as a strategist with Habitat for Humanity International and is part of the urbanism team at the University of Orange, NJ. Under this initiative, Aditi research will focus on person centered trauma informed stewardship practices for community land trusts across five states in the U.S, by documenting lived histories of homeowners who have organized along with non-profit organizations to access affordable housing. 

Visit her website https://www.aditinair.net/ and follow on Instagram: @aditi_saraswati

Oni is a first-generation Nigerian-American artist and space doula living in New York City originally from Houston, TX. He believes art is not about what he is making, but who he is making it...

Oni is a first-generation Nigerian-American artist and space doula living in New York City originally from Houston, TX. He believes art is not about what he is making, but who he is making it for. His work explores loss, liberation, and its deep connection with place. His canvas consists of existing environmental or natural elements, such as light posts or fallen tree bark, which he repurposes to prompt dialogue on ritual, healing, and connection. His aim is to fuse the physical realm with the spiritual. He has received awards and residencies from Art Omi, Residency Unlimited, the Laundromat Project, Design Trust for Public Space, Culture Push, NY for Culture and Arts, More Art, AIA Brunner Award, Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts NY, Institute for Public Architecture, Architectural League, NY State Council of the Arts, and is the FABnyc commissioned artist for the New York City Chrystie Street African Burial Ground Memorial. He is a former Director of Community Design at the New York City’s Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and Adjunct Professor at Parsons the New School for Design. He holds a Dual Bachelor’s in Science degree in Biology and Psychology from the University of Houston and a Master’s in Architecture degree from Parsons New School of design. He is the co-founder of Liminal, a non-profit that works at the intersection of art, unity, and space. Oni's project, “Beyond Memorial” Sacred Sites, is an art, spatial, and healing justice response to the invisible yet palpable scars left in spaces of community trauma or loss. “Beyond Memorial” Sacred Sites involves crucial dialogue with community groups, such as a peace-keeping youth cohort, exploring how to reclaim public spaces for community well-being and belonging.

Anthonine Pierre is a Brooklyn-born Haitian organizer, facilitator and storyteller. Anthonine’s research work has been focused on naming gaps in current social conditions and advocating for...

Danielle Sargeant is a Jamaican-born British artist, writer and curator. Her interdisciplinary practice centers on depicting landscapes, both external and internal, embedding a distinct sense...

Danielle Sargeant is a Jamaican-born British artist, writer and curator. Her interdisciplinary practice centers on depicting landscapes, both external and internal, embedding a distinct sense of time, place and atmosphere in her work. She earned her BA (Hons) in History of Art with Material Studies from University College London (UCL) in 2020 and is now pursuing her MFA in Fine Arts at Parsons: The New School. As a Fellow, she will be conducting research into key climate issues plaguing the Caribbean and its majority black population, examining the impact of colonialism, tourism and the heightened threat that climate change poses to the economy. She aims to create an immersive, multi-disciplinary account that enables viewers to traverse the landscape, celebrating its innate beauty while drawing attention to the climate crisis and long-standing injustices there.