Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

May 9, 2025

Abigail Arnold | Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

This year, the PhD students of the Brandeis University Anthropology Department received a bumper crop of prestigious grants! With six students receiving Wenner-Gren or NSF grants, the program’s students had their hard work and innovative research recognized and received support with which to continue their fieldwork. Students received the following awards:

• Third-years Skyler Inman, Syed Taha Kaleem, and Yura Yokoyama and fifth-year Sarah Han received the Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork grant.
• Fourth-year Gowthaman Ranganathan received the Wenner-Gren Engaged Research grant.
• Fourth-year Hong Zhang received the NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant for Cultural Anthropology.

Anthropology Director of Graduate Studies Jonathan Anjaria talked about how the program supports students in the grant application process. “We talk about grant writing and the importance of applying for grants from year one,” he said. “From the beginning of the PhD, students learn about grant opportunities, how to apply to grants, and why they should apply to grants. We also encourage grant writing as a continuous process whose benefits are more than financial. We show students how writing grants helps students crystallize their ideas and develop their research projects. Perhaps most importantly, all faculty see the importance of grants and help students with many, many revisions of grant proposals.”

Anjaria also warmly praised the student grantees for their achievements. “We are so proud of our graduate student grant awardees,” he said. “The faculty know this is the product of a lot of hard work.”

GSAS talked to the six awardees about their research, their application processes and how the department helped, and their advice for other students.

What does your research focus on?

Han: My research focuses on Baloch women, an ethnic minority from western Pakistan, Afghanistan, and eastern Iran, living in the United Arab Emirates. I study how they navigate belonging through fashion, clothing, and aesthetics.
Inman: My research is on a community of asylum seekers from Eritrea who’ve been living in Israel for almost twenty years and have been denied a sense of permanence. Their requests for asylum are not processed, and they live under a “voluntary departure” policy, which tries to encourage them to leave without forcibly removing them. My project looks at how Eritreans in Israel think and talk about the future, using a sociocultural and linguistic approach.
Kaleem: My research is based in Qatar. My project is called “Fossilized Norms, Fluid Desires: Oil and Materiality in Qatar.”
Ranganathan: I am working on a community-engaged project with performers in Jaffna, Sri Lanka and am helping them to create a collective. The specific grant I got is trying to rectify some of anthropology’s difficult history and foreground community-engaged work that benefits and incorporates the communities you work with.
Yokoyama: I’m researching a bitcoin project in a small town called El Zonte in El Salvador. I’m researching how the project is related to local evangelicalism and migration.
Zhang: I’m researching Chinese laborers in Colombian mines and how they interact with the local miners in the compound, as well as how they understand and experience the socialist values rooted in them, the capitalist goals of their work, and being away from family and home for so long. My dissertation will also include a collaborative filmmaking project with my participants.

How did you go about applying for this grant? Were there any resources on campus that helped you in the process? How do you think the Anthropology program culture contributed to so many students receiving awards this year?

Kaleem: These are very prestigious grants, and our department prepares us to write for them. While it’s not required that we apply, it’s very important for getting our fieldwork done and getting our work out there. In the spring of 2024, Professor Brian Horton led our graduate writing seminar, and we all did mock drafts of applications for our desired grants. This is really unique and special to our department. We spent the whole semester talking through our writing, doing peer review, and preparing to apply later in the year. During the summer of 2024, Brandeis supported my preliminary summer fieldwork, and I was really grateful for that. I also taught my own course, which was helpful because you have to break down big concepts for students, similar to convincing people to fund your work with a grant application. In the fall, I started working further on the application. I would send my advisors, Brian and Elizabeth Ferry, drafts, and they would give me edits; that’s what I did all throughout September and October. I am so blessed to have Brian, Elizabeth, and my third committee member, Pascal Menoret, read my work with such passion and eye and push me to continue to believe in the work even in tough times.
Yokoyama: One thing that really helped my process was the writing seminar. It provided me with a chance to show and test my research’s originality with my peers and really helped me succeed in the application. This was my second time going through the process.
Inman: In my experience, the department is very supportive and very attuned to the importance of getting research grants. My advisors, Elizabeth Ferry and Janet McIntosh, were really formative in looking at many iterations of my application. We’re also lucky to have a very collegial and collaborative department, and I have several close friends with whom I love to exchange work and feedback. It brings out the best in people in wanting to work hard, revise, and figure out the right way to pitch their projects. The department also brought representatives from Wenner-Gren and the NSF to our colloquium, and getting to speak directly with them was really helpful. A lot of the times it takes more than one round of applying to be successful, and I think seeing from previous cohorts that it’s normal to keep your nose to the grindstone and keep applying made the process less cataclysmically anxiety-inducing.
Ranganathan: The hugest, loudest shout-out to Jon Anjaria! This would be impossible without his absolutely unflinching, generous support! But also the full Anthropology department at Brandeis, which I owe so much to. The fact that I’m the biggest fan of Brandeis Anthropology is well-known at this point. The process started with my preliminary fieldwork with a Mandel grant, which helped me make connections with some of the people I work with now. Jon then encouraged me to apply for a COMPACT grant, and I also received a social justice grant, both of which enabled me to do fieldwork and let me say in the grant proposal that I am already doing engaged work. I was told when I first enquired about this specific grant that grad students don’t usually apply, but Jon really encouraged me! Brian Horton was very helpful in helping me frame my work in academic terms and Elizabeth Ferry in helping me bring queer theory and political anthropology together.
Zhang: Last year I was applying to both the NSF and the Wenner-Gren fellowships, and one of the challenges was making my proposal a better fit to the scientific perspective the NSF requires. Brandeis’s research office suggested making an appointment with the NSF’s program officer, which I did and which was very helpful. We talked about what they expected to see in the proposal. As for the broader success we have experienced as a department, I don’t think this is a one-year success: it comes from years of collaboration between students and faculty. From day one as students, we were encouraged to work in groups and give each other feedback on our writing. The faculty are also very supportive – I feel I am able to send them drafts whenever I need help and they are there for me. This is true of all the faculty, not just my advisor. In terms of this particular grant, I couldn’t have gotten there without the huge support Elizabeth Ferry offered me along the way through numerous discussions, looking at drafts, and walking me through a very stressful journey of submitting the final application. And I couldn't have gotten to where I am in the filmmaking project without Patricia Alvarez Astacio's generous guidance and support.
Han: This was my third time applying for the Wenner-Gren. It’s wonderful to see how the department has received so many this year, including some people receiving it on their first try. It’s really encouraging to finally receive it, as it has been a very long time refining my project. Some of the resources from the department that aided in this process include the writing class with Brian Horton, where I learned how to speak in the register expected from grants while still being true to my project and voice. Also, working on the writing process alongside peers was important as a way to have camaraderie during an isolating process. Over my time at Brandeis, the department has introduced more opportunities for us to practice articulating our research. We have a lot of chances to refine our work through different classes and other departmental events.

What are you most looking forward to in the upcoming research process?

Inman: I’ve been waiting to do this project for a long time, so I’m really excited. Thanks to the generosity of funds on campus, I’ve done some research already, and every time I’ve come back so energized. It’s been bittersweet to get back to campus because I love it here but I’ve left a part of my heart behind. I’m really honored to have gotten a vote of confidence from others in the field that my work is worth doing.
Kaleem: I did fieldwork in Qatar as an undergraduate as well, but Brandeis reoriented me as a scholar. I’m really excited to go back because I get to see something familiar with unfamiliar eyes. I am excited to apply everything I have been taught. I will be there at least a year, maybe two.
Zhang: I am going back to the field in July, first to China and then to Colombia. I am looking forward to starting the filmmaking onsite. I’m also looking forward to observing my subjects’ daily lives and how they interact with their families.
Han: I will continue to be in the United Arab Emirates for the next year, and I’m really glad to extend my time in the field, build relationships, and continue to pursue interesting things I’ve been seeing. Receiving these grants gives me more breathing room to take my time with certain aspects of research. While it is possible to accomplish the PhD without external grants, it really helps to have them. It is affirming to have an organization outside the department say that they see the value in my project.
Yokoyama: I’m going back to El Salvador in the fall. I’m still talking to many informants there, and I especially want to find out more about migration. Migration is important there because it’s common for people to migrate to the US, and the bitcoin project is trying to change that dynamic and encourage young people to stay in El Salvador. It’s really interesting to me in terms of the history of El Salvador, and I’m looking forward to finding out more about this.
Ranganathan: I’m most excited to just keep doing this work! The best thing about getting the Wenner-Gren means that I can extend my fieldwork since I have an “additional” year of funding. After a few more months of fieldwork, I will want to do some writing since I thrive when I can do both. I’m hoping to be in the field for three or four more months, then write for three or four months, and then come back to the field for another six months. I feel that after writing reflectively, I will be sharper in fieldwork and know what I’m looking for.

What advice would you give to other students about applying for grants?

Ranganathan: I feel there’s so much mysticism around grants. Demystify them! You succeed in things that hold power over you only when you let go of the power they have over you. I applied for several other grants and didn’t get them; it can be hard to keep going for it, but you should invest in your work and in finding alternate visions for a world that is breaking down. Don’t get bogged down by people’s ideas of prestige; divest from them, they’re toxic! Invest in yourself and people around you.
Inman: My advice comes from advice I’ve gotten from my own advisors and others in the department. Rather than stressing about an award’s prestige or title, keep your eye on what’s motivating you personally to do the work–what Elizabeth Ferry calls “the burning questions.” If you can put your finger on those and let them guide how you think about and frame the project, your passion will come through when you write about it. The art and craft of grant writing is wooing the readers and convincing them to be passionate about it too. You should also keep your eye on that and make it cohesive (what Janet McIntosh calls “ringing the bell”). Ring one clear bell, even if you have lots of themes.
Kaleem: Grant writing is its own genre that you need to get right. It takes time; it took many months, during some of which I wasn’t actively writing but letting the ideas marinate in my brain. Then, in the last two months, I was writing new drafts every week, which pushed me through.
Zhang: Always push yourself to work with others so that you’re not alone, since the process can be very discouraging. The feedback you get from your peers will be a great help and help you see your work from another angle; working with others will also give you structure and accountability. Particularly for an NSF grant, I also recommend starting the process early because it takes so much time and coordination and requires a lot of additional documentation beyond your proposal.
Han: Grant writing is a really, really hard process. While I have been lucky to receive two external grants, these accomplishments have come along with numerous rejected grant applications. Find people who can walk with you through it, look at drafts, and be encouraging voices when you don’t get the grants and celebrate with you when you do. Write the grants for the sake of working on your project, not for the sake of getting the grant. It’s about making your project the best it can be and finding strong ways to frame and articulate it. If you get the money, that’s great, but if not, you’re still accomplishing something good for your project. This is a really exciting year because so many students in the department received grants, but there are also people who put a lot of effort into writing grant applications but didn’t get them. I want to acknowledge their accomplishment and hard work as well.
Yokoyama: This academic year, many students from the department got grants, but this is also thanks to students from the past sharing their grant proposals with us. It happened this year, but it also happened because of others’ past experiences and their communication and knowledge within the department.