MIT SHASS Diversity Predoctoral Fellowship Program welcomes 2024-25 class

Top row, left to right: Jaime Landinez Aceros and Damanpreet Pelia. Bottom row, left to right: Nora Suren and Adam Szetela

The MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) Diversity Predoctoral Fellowship program recently welcomed its 2024-25 class. The program aims to enhance diversity in SHASS and to provide fellows with additional professional support and mentoring as they enter their fields. The fellowships are intended to support scholars from a wide range of backgrounds who can contribute to SHASS and the higher education community.

Fellowships support graduate scholars for a nine-month appointment at MIT that generally runs from September through May. They offer an opportunity for scholars who plan a career in higher education and have completed all other PhD requirements to finish their dissertations with access to libraries and faculty of the school.

Jaime Landinez Aceros, MIT Anthropology

Jaime is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Stanford University. He studies the mutual production of science, nature, and politics in contexts of political and environmental transitions. His research and teaching interests include the anthropology and history of science, environmental knowledge and history, multispecies justice, and technoscientific futures across Latin America. His dissertation research investigates the production of scientific knowledge about biodiversity in Colombia, one of the world’s most biodiverse places, in the wake of the 2016 peace agreement. It examines the mobilization of biodiversity as a valuable resource for building a post-conflict future and the daily, unexpected effects of these operations on indigenous and campesino peoples and landscapes.

Damanpreet Pelia, MIT History

Damanpreet Pelia is a PhD candidate in American Studies at Yale University. During his time at MIT, he will work on completing his dissertation, which studies American Presbyterian missionaries in Panjab during the transition to colonial rule, between 1833 and the turn of the century. His research interests include religion, secularism, empire, sovereignty, and Marxist thought.

Nora Suren, MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing & the Women’s and Gender Studies Program

Nora’s dissertation, titled “Navigating Double Oppression Online: How Digital Content Creators Maintain Their Ideological Integrity under Algorithmic Bias and Turkish Authoritarianism,” delves into the experiences of digital content creators navigating Turkey’s complex political landscapes. Referred to as “alternative creators,” these individuals, particularly women and LGBTQ+ individuals, advocate for progressive ideologies despite facing censorship, governmental constraints, and identity-based hate. While existing studies primarily focus on North America and Western Europe, Nora’s research offers a diverse perspective, illuminating the challenges politically precarious creators encounter in authoritarian regimes. Employing digital ethnography and in-depth interviews, she investigates how these creators manage visibility on social media platforms and resist political and platform precarities. Subsequent analysis chapters will delve into specific aspects, including influencers’ responses during significant events like the earthquake disaster in February 2023 and the presidential election in May-June 2023.

Adam Szetela, MIT Literature

Adam’s first book, “This Book is Dangerous! How We Talk About Literature in the Age of Social Media,” explores the various literary scandals that have unfolded in response to social media criticism. Drawing on my interviews with presidents and vice presidents at the Big Five publishers, literary agents at the most prestigious agencies, and other stakeholders, the book illuminates how social media has helped to inaugurate important progress in the name of diversity and inclusion, at the same it has raised new problems for literary freedom.

His second book, “Ivy League Comedians and the Making of American Humor,” explores the experiences and impact of comedians trained on Ivy League campuses. From Saturday Night Live to The Simpsons, Ivy League alumni have been overrepresented in many writers’ rooms. The book draws on interviews with current students and alumni, as well as archival work dating back to the 1800s, as it explores the ways in which the Ivy League has played a decisive role in the history of American humor.