CISS 2024 Summer Mini-Grants: Learn About the Recipients and Their Work
Anne Joseph (CAS’25), a participant in the inaugural Social Sciences Summer Writing Internship, has written the second of two articles, highlighting faculty and graduate student recipients of CISS Summer 2024 mini-grants.
CISS Summer mini-grants are designed to address five main needs: Undergraduate Research Assistance, Research Consultancies, Travel, Training Support, and Research Supplies. We’re nearing the end of the summer, but our graduate students’ work is far from over. This article features the work of Syeda Rumana Mehdi, a PhD student studying Sociocultural Anthropology; Bhavya Deepti Vadavalli, a PhD candidate studying Bioanthropology; and Elif Birced, a PhD student in the Sociology Department who received a summer mini-grant in 2022 and has been awarded the 2024 American Sociological Association (ASA) Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant to further support her dissertation research.
Syeda Rumana Mehdi, GRS, Sociocultural Anthropology
Rumana Mehdi’s research focuses on how Pakistani Shia women participate in mourning rituals at shrines in Iraq. With the support of the CISS Mini-Grant, she traveled to the Iraqi cities including Najaf and Karbala to observe these rituals from July 12th-22nd. The grant helps to cover essential costs such as travel, accommodations, and food, which are crucial for her immersive research. Mehdi hopes that this preliminary fieldwork “will deepen my understanding and broaden [her] horizon with regards to practiced and lived Shi’ism and the ways in which Pakistani women behave in shrines and the knowledge that is produced with these interactions.” This research is integral to her dissertation, which examines how ritual practices in shrines help socially marginalized women, particularly widows, cope with loss. Moving forward, Mehdi plans to analyze her findings and refine her research questions, with hopes of securing further funding to expand her study into Pakistan.
Bhavya Deepti Vadavalli, GRS, Bioanthropology
Bhavya Deepti Vadavalli utilized the CISS Mini-Grant to support her attendance at the Complex Systems Summer School at the Santa Fe Institute. The grant was instrumental in partially covering her tuition and living expenses, allowing her to focus on building a computational model of decision-making in subsistence populations, such as hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists. Vadavalli noted that the mini-grant “has been very helpful in this regard” by accelerating and enhancing the quality of her project, considering the new skills and tools she acquired at the summer school. Her research focuses on understanding how humans’ social lives differ compared to our ape ancestors considering behaviors such as long-term partnerships, cooperative breeding, and hierarchical inequalities. Vadavailli’s final goal is to create computational models of social networks that encompass features of social organization and run simulations over these social networks to understand how human evolution may have led to the emergence of these distinctive practices.
Elif Birced, GRS, Sociology
Elif Birced received a CISS Mini-Grant in 2022 and has since expanded her doctoral research. The grant supported her presentation of a qualifying exam paper at the 2022 American Sociological Association (ASA) conference in Los Angeles, a crucial experience for her early career. Birced described how the grant helped cover essential travel expenses and allowed her to navigate the conference more strategically. She noted, “To navigate such a big conference, like more strategically using your time at the conference, the mini-grant really enabled me to have that time without major economic concerns or without really paying out of pocket.” Considering her experience and exposure from the ASA conference, made possible by the CISS mini-grant, Birced looked towards applying to further grants, such as the prestigious ASA Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant (DDRIG) which supports “highly talented doctoral students who are conducting cutting-edge sociological research that has the potential to both advance scientific knowledge and contribute to the public good.” She describes her process of applying based on her experiences, saying, “I think I understood how prestigious it is, as in the reactions the conference attendees gave to the grant recipients through the conference. That also really motivated me to apply for this ASA grant, I would say. It’s like they’re celebrities at the conference.”
While her presentation at the ASA focused on her qualifying exam research, Birced’s current dissertation explores labor practices within content creation. Her dissertation examines how content creators manage interventions from platform audiences and brands, shedding light on labor dynamics in the digital age. As a 2024 DDRIG Grant recipient, Birced envisions her research contributing to broader discussions on labor and work, stating, “I’m trying to extend that literature to how this case extends our understanding of the operational control over the labor process, and how it transforms with the rise of platforms.”
Thank you to our CISS Mini-Grant recipients for share their experiences with us!