The Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) is pleased to announce funding awards for AY 2025-26 totaling $80,000 for scholarship, research, and creative work on women and gender at the University of Oregon. A total of 17 grants were given to 12 graduate students and four faculty members.
Anthropology doctorial candidate Malvya Chintakindi won the prestigious Jane Grant Dissertation Fellowship for her project, “Pursuing the ‘Good Life’: Intersections of Caste, Class, and Gender in Urban Slums of India”. The Jane Grant Fellow receives a $27,000 stipend and UO student health insurance for the academic year. In addition, the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation (OVPRI) provides tuition remission for the academic year.
As noted in her abstract, Chintakindi’s dissertation research “examines how Dalit women workers in India’s informal labor sector envision and pursue their aspirations for a ‘good life’ while navigating multiple forms of discrimination. Dalits, historically known as ‘untouchables’ and excluded from India’s caste hierarchy, face severe societal discrimination, with women experiencing heightened vulnerability due to their gender.”
Through ethnographic fieldwork in Hyderabad's urban slums, including participant observation and interviews spanning 50 women workers, Chintakindi’s dissertation project investigates “how the intersection of gender, caste, and class shapes these women’s daily experiences, dreams, and capabilities. Despite facing severe societal stigma and earning less than half of men’s wages for similar work, these women demonstrate remarkable resilience in crafting futures for themselves and their families.”
Chintakindi’s work aims to reveal how—despite significant constraints—Dalit women maintain dignity and pursue opportunities. While existing research often portrays these women as passive victims, her project “reveals them as active agents who develop sophisticated strategies to navigate urban spaces and social barriers.”
CSWS has awarded the Jane Grant Fellowship to graduate students at the University of Oregon since 1983. This highly competitive dissertation award supports projects from a range of disciplines on topics related to women and gender. The award is open to eligible UO graduate students who are ABD and spend the award year writing their dissertation.
In addition, CSWS awards summer Graduate Writing Completion Fellowships to support to one or more doctoral students who are in the early stages of their dissertation and who were runners up for the Jane Grant Fellowship. This year, two writing completion fellowships were awarded to doctoral candidates Jinsun Yang in sociology and Olivia Wing in history.
Two research awards are eligible for funding from the Giustina Fund for Women in the Northwest. In 1997, CSWS received a large private gift from Mazie Giustina to promote and spotlight research on women’s lives in the Pacific Northwest. Candidates for Giustina funding highlight the impacts of hostile architectural design on homeless individuals in Eugene and the history of Asian youth culture in the Pacific Northwest.
The following is a complete list of CSWS grant awardees and their projects:
Jane Grant Dissertation Fellow
- Malvya Chintakindi, Anthropology, “Pursuing the ‘Good Life’: Intersections of Caste, Class, and Gender in Urban Slums of India.”
Graduate Writing Completion Fellows
- Olivia Wing, History, “Common and Contested Ground: Chinese and Japanese American Youth Culture in the Pacific Northwest, 1920s-1960s” (Giustina Fund).
Jinsun Yang, Sociology, “Decolonizing Sex-Segregation in Sports: Global Gender Policing and LGBTQ+ Sports Activism in South Korea.”
Graduate Student Research Awards
- Precious Adejumobi, Anthropology, “Negotiating Health and Gender: Women’s Experiences of Endometriosis in Nigeria.”
Tari Azebi, Global Studies, “Feminist Environmental Justice in Practice: Women as Agents of Change in the Niger Delta’s Oil Conflict.”
Kaito Campos de Novais, Anthropology, “Crear Arte, Cultivar Lucha: The Politics of Art and Resistance among Queer and Trans Latine Immigrants.”
Gloria Macedo Janto, Romance Languages, “New Methods of Reading Indigenous Latin America: Andean Women's Resistance in the Discourses of Political Violence in Peru.”
Nicolette Molina, Psychology, “Navigating Structural Inequities: Rethinking Self-injurious Thoughts and Behaviors in Postpartum Populations.”
Ogbonnaya Okoro, Folklore and Public Culture, “The Impacts of Colonialism on Changing Gender Relations in Igboland through the Lens of Folklore and Storytelling.”
Nishat Parvez, School of Journalism and Communication, “The ‘Cha’ (Tea) Connection: Evaluating Gender, Religion, and Media Impacts in Bangladesh’s Informal Political Space.”
Sanjula Rajat, Philosophy, “The Colonial Politics of Impurity: Anti-Trans Politics in India and the Consolidation of a Hindu Nation-State.”
Bentolhoda Sobhani, Law, “That Night.”
Yui Yamada, Asian Studies, “Same-Sex Love among Girls under the Censorship and Nationalism in the Wartime Japan: Analysis of the Readers’ Column of a Girls’ Magazine.”
Faculty Research Awards
- Joyce Chen, Music, “Cherchez la femme: Music by Baroque Women Composers.”
Solmaz Kive, Interior Architecture, “Gendered Dimensions of Hostile Design” (Giustina Fund).
Audrey Lucero, Education Studies, “Why Can You Just Be A ‘Nice’ Teacher?”
Lanie Millar, Romance Languages, “Gender and Empire in Contemporary Lusophone Culture.”