News Archive: 2024
December 17, 2024
The DEIS Scholarship, funded in part by the A. Philip Randolph Fellowship, supports students from historically underrepresented backgrounds, including first-generation college students, as well as students who have a history of activism in support of underrepresented communities. Here, we profile seven new DEIS scholars who joined the Brandeis community in 2024.
December 2, 2024
In this installment of "Geeking Out With...," a series in which we talk to GSAS students about their passions, Philosophy master's student Antares Brown talks about their research into the philosophy of disability.
November 13, 2024
PhD Student Rafi Abrahams has been teaching the UWS course "Autobiographical Comics" for three semesters. GSAS caught up with Abrahams to talk about the course, how he came up with it, and what he loves about teaching.
November 11, 2024
For the eighth annual First-Generation College Celebration on November 8, 2024, Brandeis University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) hosted a networking event for graduate students who identify as first generation, meaning that they are the first in their families to earn a bachelor’s degree.
November 4, 2024
In 2023, Alexandra Burkot’s research journey took her to Athens, Greece. There, the Brandeis University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) Musicology PhD student spent nine months researching the composer Dimitrios Levidis, particularly his 1943 composition setting a passage from the Iliad; the piece was composed when Greece was under occupation during World War II and was presumed lost for decades.
November 4, 2024
In this installment of Geeking Out With..., a series in which we talk to GSAS students about their passions, Chemistry PhD student Abichael Belizaire talks about his quest to find hobbies to help him maintain work-life balance and how his lab has inspired him.
October 29, 2024
To celebrate National Cat Day, GSAS students shared pictures and stories of their cats.
October 28, 2024
Josh Broderick Phillips, B/MS’24 in Computational Linguistics, worked closely during his time at Brandeis with Professor Lotus Goldberg, serving as head research assistant in her lab. The collaborative relationship and Goldberg's mentorship helped Broderick Phillips develop his skills, setting him up for future success.
October 11, 2024
Jeff Gelles is the Aron and Imre Tauber Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology in the Department of Biochemistry and the Director of Graduate Studies for the graduate program in Biochemistry and Biophysics at Brandeis University. He has been a faculty member at Brandeis since 1989. He spoke to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences about his research work and the advantages of Brandeis’s small, close-knit, interdisciplinary science programs.
October 4, 2024
In this installment of Geeking Out With..., a series in which we talk to GSAS students about their passions, NEJS PhD student Lingxuan Liang talks about her research into Jewish Americans and transracial, transnational adoption.
September 24, 2024
Through internships, GSAS students discover new ways to apply their existing knowledge and skills and connect what they’re doing on campus to a range of career opportunities. Six GSAS students and recent alums shared their experiences with internships in the past year, what they learned, and what advice they would give other students.
September 4, 2024
While May is known as Commencement month, the summer is a big time for graduations at Brandeis University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). On August 31, 2024, forty-eight GSAS students received their degrees: twenty-seven received PhDs, and twenty-one received master’s degrees. Some August graduates spoke to GSAS about their experiences in their program and their upcoming plans.
September 3, 2024
In this installment of Geeking Out With..., a series in which we talk to GSAS students about their passions, Music Composition and Theory PhD student Ali Puskulcu talks about his journey and process as a composer.
August 30, 2024
For the 2024-2025 academic year, Brandeis University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) welcomes an incoming class of 195 students. GSAS held an ice cream social for all its students on August 28, 2024; students had the chance to catch up, meet new people, and share what they were looking forward to this year with GSAS.
August 26, 2024
Jorah Dannenberg is the newest faculty member in Brandeis University’s Department of Philosophy. His work focuses on the area of moral philosophy. He spoke to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences about what he studies and why it matters, arriving in Massachusetts after a lifetime in California, and what he likes about Brandeis so far.
August 26, 2024
To celebrate National Dog Day, GSAS students shared pictures and stories of their dogs.
August 8, 2024
Peizhao Li, PhD’24, was initially attracted to the Computer Science PhD program at Brandeis University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) because of its strong faculty and its location close to Boston. Once he started in the program, he found that he had great opportunities to develop as a researcher.
August 6, 2024
In this installment of the Geeking Out With... series, we try something a little different and introduce the GSAS staff, their roles, and their passions!
July 29, 2024
Bill Abbate, PhD’65 in Chemistry, was unable to attend Commencement at the time and never received his robes--but GSAS and Institutional Advancement were able to get them to him this summer! He talked to GSAS about his memories of his time at Brandeis and his advice for students today.
July 1, 2024
In this installment of Geeking Out With..., a series in which we talk to GSAS students about their passions, Physics PhD student Zachary Curtis talks about his work in the Science Communication Lab and the importance of communicating science clearly.
June 28, 2024
Charles Golden, Professor of Anthropology, has been appointed the new Dean of Brandeis University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). Golden, who is currently the Interim Dean of GSAS and the Social Sciences Division Head, will begin his regular term on July 1, 2024.
June 24, 2024
Imposter syndrome is a common struggle among graduate students — and among people at all levels in academia! Here, Brandeis faculty and staff share their thoughts on why imposter syndrome is so common and advice on what's helped them battle it.
June 13, 2024
Four GSAS PhD students received a Spring 2024 University Prize Instructorship (UPI), the result of a competitive process in which they designed and were selected to teach their own upper-level undergraduate courses. The four helped their students learn and learned a lot from them, growing as instructors and helping expand the university's offerings.
June 3, 2024
In this installment of Geeking Out With..., a series in which we talk to GSAS students about their passions, Sociology and Social Policy PhD student Manning Zhang talks about her research into Boston gymgoers and how it reflects her interests in culture and health.
May 16, 2024
On Sunday, May 19, 2024, Brandeis University will hold its 73rd Commencement. Following graduation, newly minted GSAS alums will be heading on different paths. Here, some graduates reflect on their experiences at GSAS and their plans for the future.
May 14, 2024
In recent months, students in Brandeis University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences have earned a variety of prestigious external grants and fellowships for the upcoming academic year. GSAS talked to four of these students, from the Sociology, Physics, History, and Anthropology PhD programs, about their research, what they’re looking forward to in the upcoming year, and what advice they have for other students pursuing grant applications.
May 6, 2024
In this installment of Geeking Out With..., a series in which we talk to GSAS students about their passions, Musicology PhD student Anna Valcour talks about her immersion in opera as both a performer and a researcher.
May 1, 2024
For 2024, Brandeis University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences honored students across programs with the annual Graduate Student Teaching Awards. These awards go to graduate student instructors or teaching assistants who have made great contributions in their programs.
April 30, 2024
On April 5, 2024, GSAS students participated in the 2024 Three Minute Thesis Competition, Brandeis's third. They presented their research in three minutes for a general audience, won prizes, and gained valuable skills along the way.
April 29, 2024
While graduate school is a notoriously busy place, it’s always a good choice to make time to think about career planning and the future. The Brandeis University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Professional Development team supports students through this often tricky process through a variety of programming and services, including the Career Fellows Program. Now in its third year, the program brings together students across departments who are committed to career exploration, building a cohort who connect with each other while attending a range of professional development workshops, informational talks, and networking sessions.
April 17, 2024
From April 1 through 5, 2024, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Brandeis University held its second annual celebration of National Graduate-Professional Student Appreciation Week. This event, started in 1993, is dedicated to celebrating graduate students across fields.
April 17, 2024
While Division of Science graduate students are hard at work in their labs, they’re also beginning to think about their plans for life after graduate school. Here to help is the Career Development for the Sciences (CDS) group, which organizes programming, including workshops and many guest speakers, to help students get a sense of the many paths available to them and the skills they need to get there.
April 12, 2024
The PhD program in English was recently featured in an article from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). The article discussed the recent changes that the program's faculty have made to the curriculum.
April 8, 2024
In this installment of Geeking Out With..., a series in which we talk to GSAS students about their passions, Computational Linguistics master's student Brynna Kilcline talks about her love of reading and how it helps her de-stress.
April 5, 2024
Sarah Mayorga of Sociology and Bing Xu of Chemistry are the 2024 co-recipients of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Mentoring Award. In their nominations, Mayorga and Xu both received high praise from their students.
March 18, 2024
Paul Argenti first entered the Brandeis English Department as a PhD student in 1975. After a couple of years, though, his professional career went in a completely different direction, and he ended up as Professor of Corporate Communication at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where he has been for the last forty-three years. It’s never too late to follow your first love, however, and as of 2021, Argenti, while continuing to teach at Dartmouth, is back at Brandeis completing the English degree.
March 13, 2024
Jinmin Lee earned her PhD in Politics from Brandeis in 2014. Since then, she has written several successful Korean books. Her most recent book, Philo and Sophie Leave the Cave, came out in 2023. The book is aimed at teaching children about famous philosophers and their ideas.
March 7, 2024
When Marcie Brewer, AGS’19 and EdM’20, first decided to apply for Brandeis’s Teacher Leadership program, she was at a crossroads in her career. She saw the program as an opportunity to build leadership skills and see if administration was right for her. Brewer ultimately decided that being a teacher leader was “the best of both worlds,” allowing her to be in the classroom with students and also lead initiatives. In the process, she got more out of her experience at Brandeis than she ever expected to.
March 6, 2024
In this installment of Geeking Out With..., a series in which we talk to GSAS students about their passions, Psychology PhD student Jillian Franks talks about her research into empathy and the surprising ways in which her love of theater has informed it.
February 16, 2024
Jonathan Anjaria, Associate Professor of Anthropology and GSAS’s Faculty Director of Professional Development, and Moriah King, PhD student in Anthropology, published the essay “Enabling Community-Engaged and Public-Facing PhDs'' in the American Council of Learned Societies report Preparing Publicly Engaged Scholars, which came out on February 1, 2024. In their essay, Anjaria (who is King’s advisor) and King shared their perspectives on the ongoing conversation about how doctoral students can conduct community-engaged projects while enmeshed in an academic world that is not always set up for them.
February 12, 2024
When Genevra Valvo, AGS’17, applied to Brandeis’s Teacher Leadership program, she was looking to address immediate challenges in her role as an ESL teacher at Waltham’s Kennedy Middle School. “We had similar questions and challenges every year,” said Valvo, who was then in her third year in the school, “and I thought I would be interested in talking with mentors and teacher leaders to develop skills to think about how to try new things and new approaches.” At the time, she wanted to see what else was possible–and through her time in the program and after, she learned many new approaches that she continues to apply to a range of challenges today, as she continues to work in the Waltham Public Schools.
February 12, 2024
In this installment of Geeking Out With..., a series in which we talk to GSAS students about their passions, History PhD student Joseph Weisberg talks about his research on Jewish American relationships to slavery and how he arrived at his research focus.
February 7, 2024
In the wake of 2020, responding to changes in the world and in academic job markets, Brandeis’s English faculty decided to change the structure and requirements of their PhD program. Among these changes? Allowing dissertations beyond the traditional book-length manuscript that the discipline usually demands. With the new curriculum coming into effect in 2021, the fruits of this change are now appearing in dissertations that take a wide range of forms.
February 1, 2024
On January 12, 2024, GSAS and the Mandel Center for the Humanities co-sponsored a daylong PhD student retreat. Aimed at first- and second-year PhD students in the Divisions of Creative Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, this event followed last year’s successful pilot, which was funded by the Connected PhD grant. Organizers Ulka Anjaria, Director of the Mandel Center for the Humanities, and Becky Prigge, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs for GSAS, planned the retreat as one that would address the crucial skills that PhD students need to succeed in graduate school.
January 23, 2024
For Marie Comuzzo and Anna Valcour, the idea to start a writing group for Brandeis PhD students sprang from their recognition of the importance of community in facilitating writing success. After supporting each other through the writing process, the two third-year PhD students in Musicology and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies were inspired to bring the idea to more students.
January 17, 2024
In this installment of Geeking Out With..., a series in which we talk to GSAS students about their passions, Anthropology PhD student Medha Asthana talks about their passion for music in all spheres of life.
January 17, 2024
The DEIS Scholarship, funded in part by the A. Philip Randolph Fellowship, supports students from historically underrepresented backgrounds, including first-generation college students, as well as students who have a history of activism in support of underrepresented communities. Here, we profile the four first-year PhDs and two second-year master's students who are participating in the program.
January 5, 2024
This past December, Liz Mahon finished the fall semester with a bang by traveling to the nation’s capital to try out her three minute thesis on a new audience. Accompanied by Alyssa Canelli, Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs for GSAS, and by Ollie the Owl, Liz was ready to compete in the finals for the North American 3MT Competition, hosted by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS).
Brandeis University announces the launch of four new academic schools
Brandeis University announced a bold academic realignment, establishing four new schools that integrate its graduate professional programs into its liberal arts curriculum.