The Robert F. and Jean E. Holtz Center for Science & Technology Studies offers a program of top-up fellowships for continuing graduate students with research interests in the field of science and technology studies (STS), broadly construed. Each award totals $4000, distributed in $2000 increments at the start of the 2018-19 and of the 2019-20 academic years.
These awards are open to graduate students in good standing in any UW-Madison graduate program. Students who accept these awards are expected to attend the Holtz Center brown bag series and other events, and are encouraged to take the introductory graduate seminar, STS 901. The next round for funding will take place in spring 2019.
In Spring of 2018, $24,000 in funds were awarded to six promising graduate students for 2018-20 STS-related research. 2018 Top-Up Fellowship winners included: Rod Abhari (Communication Arts), Ayodeji Adegbite (History), Kate Carter (Political Science), Margaret Schmits-Earley (Sociology), Adam Hayes (Sociology), and Siddharth Menon (Geography).
2018-20 Top-Up Fellowship Winners:
Rod Abhari, Communication Arts
Rod is broadly interested in scientific appeals within social movements, and specifically in the rhetorics of “race realism” within the alt-right blogosphere. As a student of Rhetoric and STS, Rod plans to use digital methods to map out the network relations between the alt-right and scientific media, and rhetorical criticism to situate these rhetorics in social and historical context.
Ayodeji Adegbite, History
Ayodeji Adegbite is a PhD student of History of Science, Medicine and Technology. His interests lean towards the history of medicine, and his research focuses on global health history, with a particular interest in Africa.
Kate Carter, Political Science
Kate Carter of the Department of Political Science studies politics and technology in sub-Saharan Africa. Her research investigates how technology use affects the quality of elections by examining electoral technology use in East Africa.
Margaret Schmits-Earley, Sociology
Margaret (Meg) Schmits Earley is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology. Meg’s research encompasses deviance, law, and social control; medical sociology, race and ethnic studies, science and technology.
Adam Hayes, Sociology
Adam Hayes is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology. Hayes’ interests include economic sociology, organizations, household finance, inequality and decision-making, sociology of risk and risk-taking economic socialization of children.
Siddharth Menon, Geography
Siddharth‘s dissertation research looks at an ethnography of concrete as a building construction material in peri-urban Kochi, Kerala to highlight the macro and micro processes through which concrete is becoming a dominant and ubiquitous building material across rural & peri-urban India.