Research

Summer Research Fellows

The Levitt Research Fellows Program is open to Hamilton students who wish to spend the summer researching a public affairs question of their choosing. Students from any academic concentration are welcome to apply. The Levitt Council gives preference to rising juniors and seniors.

Summer Research Fellows collaborate closely with a faculty adviser, work on a full-time basis for up to ten weeks, report on their research sometime during the summer, create a large-format poster and participate in a poster presentation session in the fall and submit a paper or equivalent final product by August 15th.  

There are two deadlines which will be announced in early January: a pre-application deadline and a regular application deadline. As part of the pre-application process, students will need to submit the topic for their summer research and provide the Levitt Center with the name of the faculty member who has agreed to act as the advisor. Once the Levitt Center has received the pre-application, we will contact advisors to provide them with information on what the Levitt Council is looking for in students’ research proposals and applications. Students are strongly encouraged to work closely with their advisor to ensure their proposals are well thought out, manageable and focused. The Levitt Center will not accept any regular applications from students who do not meet the pre-application deadline.

Students selected for the program will receive a $525/week summer stipend. Faculty advisors receive $150/week for advising up to three individual fellows, an additional $50/week for 4 or more fellows, with a cap of $200/week total. 

2025 Research Fellows

Rianne Almontaser ’27
Voter Education in Low-Income Communities
Advisor: Stephen Ellingson, professor of sociology

Gabrielle Brihn ’26
Exploring Teaching Philosophy to Young Students through Literature
Advisor: Marianne Janack, John Stewart Kennedy Professor of Philosophy

Senna Camp ’26
Making a Clean Break: How Do Animals Become Food?
Advisor: Celeste Day-Moore, associate professor of history

Maddison Campbell ’26
Investigating Microbial Water Quality and Infrastructure in the Flint River: A Community-Based Approach to Environmental Justice
Advisor: Mike McCormick, chair of geosciences, professor of biology, and Joel W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Science

Caroline Cannata ’26
At the Intersection of Past, Present, and President: The Context of the Current Anti-Science Trend
Advisor: Kevin Grant, Edgar B. Graves Professor of History

Lee Casstevens ’26
White Picket Violence: Constructing Fear of the Other in White Suburban Communities
Advisor: Amy Brener, assistant professor of art

Anny Chen ’27
Minimum Wage and Material Hardship in NYC
Advisor: Elaine Barker, assistant professor of economics

Samantha Flaherty ’27
The Linguistic Capacities of Artificial Intelligence and Their Implications for Human Interaction
Advisor: Spencer Chen, assistant professor of anthropology

Ailis Hayden ’26
Evaluating the Impact of Government-Funded Programs on Recidivism Rates in New York State
Advisor: Stephen Ellingson, professor of sociology

Carter Higgins ’27
"kamala IS brat": (Inter)Textual Precarity, Technological Affordance, and Semiotic Disruption in Kamala Harris’s 2024 Presidential Campaign
Advisor: Spencer Chen, assistant professor of anthropology

Peter Hinkle ’26
The Oneida Community and The Oneida Circular
Advisor: Douglas Ambrose, Sidney Wertimer Professorship for Excellence in Advising and Mentoring and Professor of History

Morgan Hodorowski ’26
Theorizing Epic Fantasy: Literary, Commercial, and Historical Phenomenon
Advisor: Steven Yao, Edmund A. LeFevre Professor of English

Polina Igumnova ’27
Art as Resistance: Indigenous Creativity Against Imperialist Propaganda in the Russian Far East
Advisor: Ani Abrahamyan, assistant professor of Russian studies

Elizabeth Jacoby ’26
‘The Best That Baltimore Has to Offer’?: Question F and Inner Harbor’s Redevelopment
Advisor: Lisa Trivedi, Christian A. Johnson Excellence in Teaching Professor of History

Mele Kaneali?i ’27
Colonial Legacies and Modern Displacement: Hawai‘i’s Housing Crisis Through the Lens of Policy and Investment
Advisor: Joel Winkelman, assistant professor of government

Victoria Lieberman ’26
Choreographed Fingers: Negotiating Consensual Touch
Advisor: Janina Selzer, visiting assistant professor of sociology

Natilie Mikhaeel ’26
Faith and Survival: A Comparative Analysis of Relations Between States and Christian Minorities in Syria and Lebanon
Advisor: Pedram Maghsoud-Nia, visiting instructor in government

Nicole Moncada ’26
Teaching Class: The Role of Teacher Perceptions and Labeling in Reproducing Class Stratification
Advisor: Stephen Ellingson, professor of sociology

Anni-Maria Ojanen ’26
Financial Literacy Requirements and Wealth Inequality
Advisor: Paul Hagstrom, Leonard C. Ferguson Professor of Economics

Ana Paula Reig ’27
Number of Single-Mother Households and Father Figures in the Neighborhood Predict Future Earnings of Children in the Community. What is the role of over-policing?
Advisor: Ann Owen, professor of economics and the Henry Platt Bristol Professor of Public Policy

Shey Sanges ’26
Higher Education Climate Action and Carbon Neutrality Commitments: Approaches and Achievements
Advisor: Aaron Strong, director, associate professor of environmental studies

Carolyn Snowman ’28
A Historiographical Study of Scholarship on Women in Music
Advisor: Lydia Hamessley, John and Anne Fischer Professor in Fine Arts, acting chair of music

Summer Research Groups

The Levitt Research Group Grants support groups of students that complete summer research projects under the supervision of at least one faculty advisor. The grants are intended to encourage faculty and student publications. Student and faculty members from all divisions in the college are encouraged to apply.

Fieldwork or original analysis of existing data is generally required, with preference given to teams doing research in the local community. Projects that will be useful for policy makers and other researchers are also encouraged. Students in research groups and their faculty advisors meet face-to-face regularly to coordinate and communicate research efforts.

Each student works on a full-time basis for the duration of the project as determined by the faculty mentor, submits a 25-page paper (or equivalent final product) by August 15th and presents their research in the fall or spring.

Deadline for applications is mid-February. Stipends: $520/week for the student and $250-$400/week per faculty member, depending on the number of students supervised:  $250 for the first two students, an additional $100 for a third student and an additional $50 for a fourth student, up to a maximum stipend of $400/week.

2025 Research Groups

Daniel King ’27, Jaiden Knowles ’26, Sofia Maya ’27, and Paula Vilato ’26
Art, Activism, and Identity: Mapping Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Contemporary Spanish Cultural Production.
Advisor: Marcelo Carosi, assistant professor of Hispanic Studies

Serena Bagga ’27, Xia Hengchao ’28,  Emma Hirsch ’27, Jessica Mason ’26, Zachary Rainville ’28, and Alexander Wagner ’2
Discrimination in Access to Health Care: The Case of Dentistry
Advisors: Evelyn Skoy, assistant professor of economics, and Steve Wu, Irma M. and Robert D. Morris Professor of Economics