Cornell senior and two alumni receive prestigious Mellon fellowships

Jaffa Panken
Panken

Jaffa Panken, a senior history major from Baltimore, Md., was one of 85 students nationwide to receive the 2005 Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, awarded by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The fellowship covers tuition and required fees for the first academic year of graduate school, including a stipend of $17,500.

Panken was joined by two Cornell alumnae who also received the Mellon: Lauren Donovan '02, classics; and Julia Guarneri '03, history.

Panken will enter a Ph.D. program at the University of Pennsylvania to pursue gender studies in late 19th- and early 20th-century American cultural history.

"The Mellon will give me the financial support necessary to do something I love," said Panken. "Since history is not a well-compensated field, it is both a safety net, moneywise, and a notable accomplishment."

Guarneri, a Brooklyn, N.Y., resident, will enter a Ph.D. program at Yale University in the fall. Donovan, who is from Concord, Mass., will pursue a Ph.D. in classics at Brown University.

Panken is currently completing the honors thesis that impressed the Mellon faculty panelists, "Behind the Mirror Image: Urie Bronfenbrenner in the Soviet Union." The thesis, in part, grew out of her work with Joan Brumberg, the Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow and professor of history, human development and gender studies who nominated Panken for the Mellon.

"It has been a joy to teach Jaffa and to watch her grow as a historian and as a person," Brumberg said. "Now, after a number of research projects together, such as girls and horses or the history of self-injurious behavior -- I feel that she has become a young colleague."

The Mellon fellowships are designed to help exceptionally promising students prepare for careers of teaching and scholarship in humanistic disciplines. The fellowship is a competitive merit award for first-year doctoral students. Fellows may take their award to any accredited graduate program in the United States or Canada. More than 2,000 fellows have been named since the competition began in 1982. Mellon fellows now holding doctorates are teachers and scholars at some of the nation's top colleges and universities, including Cornell.

 

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