Doctoral Research

The University of Michigan Museum Studies Program is pleased to offer a competitive fellowship to doctoral students in the program.  Through the “Fellowship for Doctoral Research in Museums,” the Museum Studies Program provides awards up to $10,000 to MSP students whose dissertation research is explicitly situated in or around museums and related institutions.  MSP students must have completed the Museum Studies Proseminar and at least 3 credits of the cognate course requirement to be considered for this funding award.  In addition, applicants must have passed their PhD qualifying exams and defended their dissertation prospectus.  Additional information and the application form can be found on the MSP Dropbox site.

Applications will be reviewed two times every year, on October 1 and April 1.

Contributions by several of our FDRM awardees are included among the MSP Working Papers.

Since the FDRM program was initiated in 2008, the following students have received funding support for their research:

Zachary Kopin
MSP16, History
FDRM awarded 2022
PhD in progress
Ordering the New World: A History of Law in Plymouth Colony
Caroline Nemechek
MSP19, Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art & Archaeology
FDRM awarded 2022
PhD in progress
Crafting Identities: Roman Mosaics and Social Agency
Mariane Stanev
MSP16, Comparative Literature
FDRM awarded 2022
PhD in progress
How to Hear Noise in Times of Peace: Towards an Abolitionist Transimperial Cultural History of Pacification in the U.S. and Latin America
Alexandra Norwood
MSP18, Biological Anthropology
FDRM awarded 2021
PhD in progress
Reconstructing South African Landscapes at the Last Glacial Maximum
Zoe Ortiz
MSP16, Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art & Archaeology
FDRM awarded 2021
PhD in progress
The Sculptures and Urban Landscape of Imperial Gabii: A City in Transition
Grace Mahoney
MSP16, Slavic Languages and Literature
FDRM awarded 2019
PhD in progress
Behind Cream Curtains: Estates, Museums, and their Literary Interlocutors in Early-Soviet Culture, 1917-1930
Felix Zamora-Gomez
MSP16, Romance Languages and Literature
FDRM awarded 2019
PhD in progress
Foundational Landscapes: Regimes of Visuality and the Construction of New Narratives of History and Heritage in 20th Century Spain 
Allan Martell
MSP15, Information Science
FDRM awarded 2018
PhD awarded 2020
Memory Labor as Memory Making: The Negotiation of Collective Remembering through the Production of Museum Exhibits
Kathryn Holihan
MSP14, German Languages and Literature
FDRM awarded 2018
PhD awarded 2020
Displaying the Hygienic Body: The Popular Hygiene Exhibition in Germany, 1880-1931
Emma Sachs
MSP10, IPCAA
FDRM awarded 2017
PhD awarded 2019
Stylistic Allusions in Campanian Wall Painting
Alice Tsay
MSP13, English
FDRM awarded 2017
PhD awarded 2017
Matters of Taste: Digesting Difference in Victorian and Edwardian Culture
Ben Tupper
MSP14, Educational Studies
FDRM awarded 2017
Master of Arts awarded 2021
Educational Practice and Professional Development of Docents in a Botanical Garden
Ashley Miller
MSP10, History of Art
FDRM awarded 2016
PhD awarded 2017
Locating Heritage in French Colonial Morocco (ca. 1912-1931)
Diana Sierra-Becerra
MSP12, History and Women’s Studies
FDRM awarded 2015
PhD awarded 2017
Without Women There is no Revolution: Gender and Social Movements in Twentieth-Century El Salvador
Abi Celis
MSP11, Romance Languages
FDRM awarded 2015
PhD awarded 2018
Reading Museums, Imagining Communities
Courtney Cottrell
MSP12, Anthropology
FDRM received 2014
PhD awarded 2017
Educating History: Colonial Practices of Ethnographic Museums and How Tribal Museums are Changing Them 
Justin Meyer
MSP12, Urban Planning
FDRM received 2014
PhD awarded 2016
Art Museums and their Connection to Urban Development
Sarah Gothie
MSP09, American Culture
FDRM received 2013
PhD awarded 2016
Gardens of Innocence and Experience
Andrew Gurstelle
MSP09, Anthropology
FDRM awarded 2012
PhD awarded 2015
Sacred Trees of the Savè Hills Cultural Landscape
Kelly Kirby
MSP05, Anthropology
FDRM awarded 2012
PhD awarded 2014
Clothing, Kinship, and Gifts: Transnational Wardrobes in Senegal and the Diaspora
Ricardo L. Punzalan
MSP08, Information
FDRM awarded 2012
PhD awarded 2013
Challenges and Barriers to Virtual Reunification: The Case of the Dispersed Ethnographic Images of Dean C. Worcester
Luciana Aenasoiae
MSP08, Anthropology and History
FDRM awarded 2011
PhD awarded 2016
Activating Social Networks: Memory, Acquaintances, and Marginality in Romanian Transformation Discourses
Morgan Daniels
MSP06, Information Science
FDRM awarded 2011
PhD awarded 2014
Museum Data Collections: From Object to Representation to the Production of New Knowledge
Aimee Von Bokel
MSP08, American Culture
FDRM awarded 2011
PhD awarded 2013
Two Museums, One Story: The Lower East Side Tenement Museum and the Weeksville Heritage Center
Clara Cahill
MSP09, Education
FDRM awarded 2010
PhD awarded 2012
Zydeco: Fostering Seamless Connections between the Classroom and the Museum
Christopher Berk
MSP07, Anthropology
FDRM awarded 2010
PhD awarded 2014
Building Bodies in the Australian Periphery: The Enactment of Aboriginality in Tasmania
Deirdre Hennebury
MSP04, Architecture
FDRM awarded 2009
PhD awarded 2014
An Investigation of the Urban, Architectural and Exhibit Designs of the Tate Museums, Millbank and Liverpool
Hima Mallampati
MSP05, IPCAA
FDRM awarded 2008
PhD awarded 2010
Acquiring Antiquity: Plunder, Provenance and Policy in Museums
Ipek Kaynar Rohloff
MSP04, Architecture
FDRM awarded 2008
PhD awarded 2009
Aligning Museum Building Projects with Institutional Goals: A Visitor-Experience Centered Approach
Keun Young Kim
MSP06, Anthropology
FDRM awarded 2008
Multiculturalism and Museums in China
Christine DeLisle
MSP05, History and Women’s Studies
FDRM awarded 2008
PhD awarded 2008
Civilizing the Guam Museum