Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program

Hazel Carias-Urbina is a History student with an interest in Latin American Studies. Her experience growing up as a teenager during the Trump administration compelled her to reflect on her position in society as the American-born daughter of Central American immigrants. With the encouragement of several students and professors, she has focused her studies on the history of U.S. intervention and Central American migration to Los Angeles. She studies the history of immigration and community organizing in the Byzantine Latino Quarter, part the Pico Union district, a dense Central American community where her family lived for almost three decades. Her research project for the MMUF examines the history of the annual Central American Independence Parade and Festival hosted by the COFECA organization, which has advocated for Central Americans in Los Angeles since the 1980s. Hazel hopes that her research will highlight the importance of Central Americans as an ethnic minority within the United States and the Latinx diaspora, as well as the challenges this community faces within both Los Angeles and the United States. 

Kimberly Conde is a first-generation student and a political science major. Her experience in the Summer Bridge Summer Program at Cal State LA sparked her interest in how first-generation students use navigational capital tools in higher education. Her research the impact of various peer mentoring models on the success of first-generation Latinx students. Kimberly hopes that her scholarship and academic training will illuminate social-academic issues that affect first-generation Latinx students.

Shelley Cueto-Gonzalez (she/her) was born in Pasadena, CA but grew up in the East L.A. "hood." She is currently majoring in English at Cal State LA. Her research focuses on the relationship between William Shakespeare and rap music. Shelley explores the connections between these two seemingly different topics and examines how students use these cultural forms to support their mental health.  Upon completing this project, she plans to obtain her Ph.D. in English and continue her investigations of the relationship between literature and music. 

Tania Galvez is an Anthropology major with a minor in Woman, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.  Her research focuses on women’s health, particularly regarding healthcare access, in cross-cultural contexts.  Her interest in the topic was aroused during familial visits to her mother’s family in Zamora, Michoacán, Mexico where medical facilities in the small town are limited. More recently, she has undertaken a research project that explores the temporal aspect of women’s health.  Utilizing pre-Columbian pelvises from several dozen individuals recovered from a Maya cave, Tania will determine if women were at greater risk of suffering from osteoporosis than men in this sample dated to the ninth and tenth centuries.

Karina Gutierrez is currently a History major with a minor in Chicana(o) and Latina(o) Studies. As a first-generation Mexican American college student, she wants to understand how immigration law and policies between the U.S – Mexico impact communities. Her current research explores how different organizations have advocated for immigrant rights in the Inland Empire. In her free time, she provides resources and guidance to people in her community on their path to citizenship. In the future, she hopes to become a professor to not only mentor other Latinx students, but to also combine academic work with organizing to give back to her community.

MaryJay Villavicencio is currently majoring in English and a minor in science fiction. Following nine years of pursuing writing projects to find and let her writing evolve with her interests, they are exploring a project that centers around writing pedagogy for Latine students in first-generation perspectives. Having opportunities to write from a first-generation perspective, she found an interest in asking questions about writing pedagogies for students of multiethnic backgrounds and asking to share representation in literature classes. In doing so, she hopes to bring more students together to represent themselves so future higher academic courses are diverse and welcome to all writers and so educators can also stay teachable.

Shahar Wakan is a senior studying anthropology. He has traveled extensively, to places such as Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia, South America, the Caribbean, and Africa. He is passionate about world culture. Shahar aspires to utilize his international travel experiences as a resource to become a professor of cultural anthropology. He identifies himself as an African American part of the African diaspora. Through his research, he hopes to investigate the evolving culture of Africans within the diaspora, of the Americas and the Caribbean. His research investigates health, food access, and food security among urban and rural populations within the African diaspora. Shahar hopes that his research will raise awareness regarding the relatability and resourcefulness of community cooperation within rural and urban environments.

Dana Yassin is a Political Science major with a minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is an Egyptian-born American and attributes her passion for social justice work to having witnessed firsthand the cruel treatment of women under legal and social pressures in the region. She focuses on gender equality in the Middle East & the U.S as well as the impact of U.S foreign policy on human rights in the global South. Her current research centers on legal prejudice and human rights violations against women and queer people in Egypt. She aims to shine a light on the inhumane circumstances that women and queer people endure outside of the Western world in the hopes that increased exposure can challenge oppression