The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) plays an essential role in supporting the innovative research and graduate education that are cornerstones of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. WARF invests in graduate education through University Fellowships and Advanced Opportunities Fellowships/Graduate Research Scholars. The following profiles illustrate the diverse and important ways that WARF contributes to graduate student success at UW–Madison.
WARF-funded student profiles
Yacov Zohn
Yacov Zohn is a PhD candidate in History at UW–Madison specializing in sports history. His dissertation follows the story of the national Soviet soccer team from its first competitive international competition at the 1952 Olympics to its disintegration in the early 1990s.
Ruby Bafu
PhD student, Sociology Ruby is working with a midwestern school district to study how microschools, which are smaller and often more personalized learning environments, utilize unique strategies for educating and supporting their students.
Katie Deaven
PhD student, Philosophy Katie studies the philosophy of biology. She hopes her dissertation work will push the conversation further into a new direction.
Shannon Dillard
PhD student, Geography Shannon uses remote sensing techniques to map thawing permafrost in Alaska. She is a collaborator on a Department of Energy project that seeks to understand the processes of permafrost thaw to improve predictions for the future.
Marie-Agathe Simonetti
PhD candidate, Art History Marie-Agathe's dissertation examines photography as an expression of politics from the French and Vietnamese perspectives.
Genesie Miller
PhD student, Japanese Genesie is a scholar of Japanese literature and visual culture. She focuses on early modern Japanese feminine and queer sexualities in poetry and images, exploring the range of expressions of the feminine experience in early modern Japan.
Elliott Brandsma
PhD student, Scandinavian Studies As a PhD student, Elliott studies how trends and features of literary modernism took root across the Nordic region during the first half of the 20th century. Two of the authors he works on – Icelandic novelist Halldór Laxness and Swedish poet Harry Martinson – have won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Piper Rawding
PhD student, Pharmaceutical Sciences Piper's work in the Hong research lab focuses on developing nanocarriers to improve cancer immunotherapy. By understanding and controlling the interactions that polymers have with cells, researchers like Piper can engineer nanocarriers' biological behaviors to improve the efficiency and accuracy of cancer-battling drugs.
Jeffrey M. Thomas
PhD student, French Jeffrey M. Thomas is a PhD student in French whose research focuses on literature about and from Corsica, specifically from the 19th and 21st centuries.
Sheena Finnigan
PhD student, History Sheena’s research focuses on the history of motherhood among non-elite women in classical Rome.
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