UNDERGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIP
The Gender Institute and the Experiential Learning Network awards two scholarships to UB undergraduate students. One $500 award for undergraduates conducting research related to women, gender and/or sexuality, and another $500 award for a community-based project with a gender and/or sexuality focus.
Projects can be individual or collaborative. Open to undergraduates in all schools and departments.
Congratulations to the 2025 Undergraduate Scholarship Awardees
Fatima Makama
Fatima Makama is an undergraduate senior in the honors college majoring in Public Health with minors in English and Biological Sciences. She has served as Vice President of Islamic Relief, Undergraduate Public Health Ambassador, and Researcher in the Honors College Think Tank. She also volunteers in the community as a Rape Crisis Advocate and is a Senior Associate Board member for the New York Birth Control Access Project.
Fatima is currently a John Lewis Young Leaders Fellow at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights. Her capstone project is a community-based project in collaboration with Harvest House Inc., a non-profit organization providing services to underserved communities in Buffalo. The project addresses the inequities that exist in accessing reproductive health services among immigrant and low-income women. It involves the use of a comprehensive community resource guide as a referral tool to assist women in connecting to free and low-cost maternal and reproductive health services across the Western New York region. Fatima plans to develop a report examining the effectiveness of the resource guide as a referral tool as a means of increasing access to maternal and reproductive health services.
Brianna Tejeda
Brianna Tejeda (she/her) is an artist-writer who examines identity, gender, mental health, and self-portraiture. In film, painting, drawing, and print, she creates highly personal and politically engaged works that are resistant to binary constructs of gender and expression. Based on vulnerability, memory, and the fluidity of becoming, her works offer alternative narratives for viewing ourselves and each other.
As a Fine Arts major and holder of a Creative Writing certificate, Brianna's thesis examines depersonalization and gender fluidity. Her art uses documentary photographs, personal confessional monologues, and visual storytelling. Her project forces an encounter with binaries and an acceptance of the fluidity of identity.
Guidelines
Applications must include:
1. Statement of academic interests, accomplishments, and career goals (no more than 500 words).
2. Description of the specific research or community project for which you are seeking support (500 words). If you are a visual studies student, please also include a portfolio of 5 images of your work.
3. Complete transcripts from all colleges attended (unofficial transcripts accepted).
4. Resume or c.v.
5. One letter of recommendation, which must be from a faculty member.
(Recommendation is sent directly from faculty member to the Scholarship Portal.)
Supplemental Questions
1. Are you working on a research project toward publication or an honors thesis?
2. Are you an art or media study student working on gender and/or sexuality and you need resources for an art project or senior project?
3. Are you interested in organizing a community event that would address gender, and/or LBGTQ issues?
4. Are you working on a research project that requires travel funds for fieldwork, interviews, research in historical archives?
Applications should be sent to the Scholarship Portal.
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Criteria of Evaluation:
1. Applicants must show a commitment to issues related to gender and/or sexuality
2. Applicants must show evidence of academic excellence
3. Priority is given to applicants with a well-articulated project and research goals
4. Review committee places importance on the letter of recommendation.
2024
Simone Brock, Arianna Kouassi, and Hayley Mundy - UB Honors College Project
Fiona Serrano, History, Global Gender and Sexuality Studies, and English
2022-2023
Rachel Gelat, Media Studies and Global Gender and Sexuality Studies
June Sherpa, Business Administration
2018-2019
Alivia Smeltzer-Darling, Romance Languages and Literatures
Hanna Santanam, Anthropology and English
2017-2018
Rachel Charette, History
Isabel Hall, Environmental Engineering
2016-2017
Sarah Stanford, English
2015-2016
Cathleen Alarcón, Romance Languages and Literatures
2014-2015
Samah Asfour, Political Science and Global Gender Studies
2013-2014
Kerri Pickard-DePriest, Environmental Studies and English
Sharlene Green, Political Science and African American Studies
"Since the 2014-15 academic year, two of the scholarship awardees, Samah Asfour and Sarah Stanford, have won prestigious Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships (ETA) and a third, Cathleen Alarcón, received permission from Mexican playwright Bárbara Colio to translate Colio’s 2014 play “Casi Transilvania” from Spanish into English."