After a national competition, two recent PhD graduates from UCSB have been selected as Emerging Voices Fellows by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) for 2020. Francisco Beltran, PhD in History, and Sahar Sajadieh, PhD in Media Arts and Technology, join a cohort of 43 other fellows, with the aim of advancing their research agendas while undertaking a variety of roles including teaching, collaborative research, program development, and public engagement at ACLS Research University Consortium partners across the country.
The fellowship program supports new and recent PhDs in the current challenging academic job market, and was launched in May 2020 in response to the economic downturn and uncertainty in academe in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The program is designed to assist a vanguard of scholars whose voices, perspectives, and broad visions will strengthen institutions of higher education and humanistic disciplines in the years to come.
Selected from nearly 300 scholars nominated by nearly 100 universities, the 45 awardees distinguished themselves through outstanding scholarly achievement, strong track records of engagement with diverse audiences and curricular innovation, demonstrated commitment to equity and inclusion in and beyond the classroom, and the potential to move the academic humanities and social sciences in exciting new directions.
Read more about the program, and meet the Emerging Voices Fellows here.