Turner Schulman Undergraduate Fellows

Lin Ang, Sociology
Transforming Spaces: The Experiences of Transgender and/or Non-Binary Individuals in the Gayborhood

Hannah De Oliveira, History/Legal Studies
Japanese Americans and Americanism: An Exploration of Democracy, Loyalty, and Change in the World War II Era

Adrian Ke, World History
Oceans Apart and Spaces Between: Sociopolitical Identity Formation of Early 20th Century Second Generation Chinese Peruvians

Anya Miller, Sociology
The Thriftification of Philadelphia: How Socioeconomic Status Impacts and Informs the Second-Hand Shopping Experience in Philadelphia

Alex Moon, Sociology
Interracial Marriage in Chicago, 1937-1967: Crossing Two Color Lines

Angela Shen, International Studies/Business
Spirituality and Self-Expression: Constructing and Experiencing Asian American Identity Through Martial Arts

Tiffany Tieu, Psychology
Exploring the Impact of Anti-Asian Hate on Penn Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sylvie Turner, Sociology
Jail Community Churn and Excess Mortality During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Zhangyang Xie, Africana Studies/Science, Technology, and Society
Examining the Social Reproduction of Racism Through the Eyes of American Religious Groups

Augustine Benjamin, Math/Philosophy
The Importance and Challenges of Engaging Ethnically Diverse Communities in Genomics Research

Hannah Yusuf, Political Science
Gentrification and Health in Philadelphia

Laura Beck, Political Science
Geographies of Refugee Resettlement

Emmanuel Jackson Foltz, International Relations
How Faith-Based Organizations Respond to Migration Patterns and Policy

Lea Makhloufi, Modern Middle Eastern Studies/Philosophy, Politics and Economics
From Crisis to Catalyst: Water as an Impetus for Change Between Gaza and Israel

Rebecca Molinoff, Philosophy, Politics and Economics
The Impact of “I Voted” Stickers

Hannah Nasseri, International Relations/Economic History/Religious Studies
The Anglo-Persian Oil Company and the Impact of British Petropolitics in Early 20th-Century Iran

Ton Nguyen, Philosophy, Politics and Economics/Consumer Psychology
Immigrants in Urban Education: A Philadelphia Case Study

Antonio Ramirez, Economics
Let’s Talk Politics: A Dictator Game Experiment with Social Norms and Signals of Political Ideology

Margaret Tebbe, Sociology/Linguistics
West Philadelphia Neighborhood Community Study

Toni Walker, Communication
Rethinking Freedom: Exploring Black Queer Art in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Esther Yeung, Political Science
The European Union and National Minority Rights: Hungarian Minorities Abroad

Hyuntae Byun, Biophysics and Earth Sciences
An Analysis of the Political, Economic, and Social Causes and Effects of Urban Farms

The aim of this project is to characterize and better understand the causes and catalysts for urban agriculture, document sub-trends within the larger trend of the urbanization of agriculture, and evaluate the effects of extant urban agricultural institutions. Specifically, whether the individuals who work in urban farms share similar attributes and value systems, if the presence of government subsidies for underutilized land catalyze the formation of urban farms, whether the presence of urban farms encourage the later formation of subsequent local farms, and do urban farms produce measurable positive or negative externalities.

Amanda Damon, Communication and Public Service
The Immigration Debate in America Today: A Modern Day Civil Rights Issue

This research project is intended to draw a connection between and call immigration a modern day civil rights issue. By traveling to the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library in Austin, Texas and the Ronald Reagan presidential museum in Simi Valley, California as well as analyzing contemporary political speeches delivered by President Trump and President Obama on immigration, I will compare how past civil rights and current civil rights/immigration rhetoric differ, and why it is not effective today as a result. Primarily through my textual analysis of signing statements, speeches and/or other internal administrative documents, in the end I am arguing that because immigration today is a civil rights issue, it requires the same kind of legislative outcome, which is a law, and thus we can look to LBJ on civil rights as a historical model for success. 

Victoria Gonzalez-Saldana, Latin American and Latino Studies
The Oral History of Immigrants Who Grew Up in US-Mexico Border Regions

This project will take form as a short documentary through a series of interviews detailing the oral histories of immigrants who grew up in the US-Mexico border region. It will specifically focus on immigrants who received legal status through the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Michael John, Political Science/Africana Studies
Nation Building: Exploring Ethnic Identity in Post-Colonial Guyana

This project is primarily about examining the implications of ethnic diversity on democratic institutions and development challenges in the South American country of Guyana – derived out of its colonial occupation. With strong ties to the anglophone Caribbean, due to its colonial legacy, the historical progression of this small nations’ political institutions has been driven by a stark racial agenda. Sharply divided between three main ethnic groups composed of East Indian, African and Indigenous descent, racial politics has had an important role in the performance of democracy in the country. This research will question the implications of ethnic diversity on the performance of political institutions and challenges of economic development within Guyana in the post-colonial era, particularly through its nation building process.

Jennifer Langer, Non-Profit/NGO Leadership
Beyond Cultural Competency: A Case Study of Puentes de Salud’s Model of Care

The United States Department of Human Services, alongside the Office Of Minority Affairs, has recognized the need for better healthcare practices to address the growing diversity in the population, and therefore have created The National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Care. However, the outcomes of these standards and their implementation at smaller, community health organizations is not well documented. This study explores how the standards informed the healthcare model of Puentes de Salud, a health clinic for Latinx immigrants residing within the Philadelphia area. Results from the study reveal that Puentes de Salud meets many of the standards proposed by the government, paying special attention to linguistically appropriate care and a model built with the input of the community. However, it also reveals that their model goes far beyond these standards, and is more comprehensive of the needs of the population served, accounting for the political, legal, and economic situations of their patients as determining factors in how they provide care.

Archana Upadhyay, World History
A More Peculiar “Peculiar Institution”: Race in British Perceptions of Slavery in the Ottoman Empire, 1840-1890

British understandings of slavery and antislavery policy were highly geographically determined. Humanitarian moral absolutes always intersected with unique understandings of particular areas, partly due to political and economic priorities but also due to broader public attitudes, a major one being developing understandings of race and civilization. This project plans to analyze 19th century British travel narratives to compare the portrayals of Ottoman slavery to Atlantic slavery in similar sources. It will focus on the role that understandings of race and civilization played in creating different policies.

Changyue Yin, History
A Communist Dream: Oral History Accounts of Indonesian Immigrants Before and After the Cultural Revolution in the People’s Republic of China

The goal of this research is to document the personal experience of my grandfather’s siblings who migrated to different parts of China from Indonesia in the 1940s and 1950s. Though dispersed in different provinces, they maintained contact with each other, supported each other, and went through the turbulent first forty years of the People’s Republic of China. This project aims to record the accounts of their experiences as immigrants to the early stage of PRC, and their impression of the PRC coming from a different cultural and ethnical background.