Ryan Russell is a PhD candidate in the department of Politics at the University of Virginia. He studies African and American political thought, focusing on the intersections and politics of anticolonialism, violence, and racial capitalism.
I received my BA in cinematography and political and social thought from the University of Virginia in 2021. I love to create art, find stories, and be outdoors. I also love to explore questions art, activism, and colonial legacies. I have spent most of my life in Tanzania.
Lauren Budreau is a fourth year student with a double major in Studio Art and American Studies and a minor in Art History. She has been interested in how art can be used to convey the damages humans are inflicting on the environment. Her recent work has approached this in the aspect of apocalypse, envisioning if humans have failed to preserve their ability to exist on the earth. Through her work, she hopes people will be more conscious of their daily actions and how they affect the environment.
Michelle Walsh is a Ph.D. candidate in religious studies, specializing in Himalayan Buddhist practices and contemplative studies. Her research focuses on the globalization of religion and contemporary religious approaches to emotional well-being while considering local contexts and their impact. As a trained healthcare practitioner and program developer in public health, social service, and higher education in Asia and North America, her work lies at the intersection of religion and health.
Enrique Unruh was born in Madrid, Spain and grew up in Phoenix Arizona and Fairfax, Virginia. He is majoring in Global Studies with a concentration in Global Development and minoring in Statistics. His work for Batten’s Global Policy Center mapping the Venezuelan exodus sparked his interest in immigration policy. Over the summer, he interned for the UVA Equity Center on their Democratization of Data project where he analyzed the Charlottesville police department’s search and frisk practices. As he continues his undergraduate career, he hopes to research how the legacy of Spanish colonialism influences modern Spanish politics.
Clara Ma is a Ph.D. candidate in art and architectural history in the McIntire Department of Art. Her dissertation explores how Buddhist monks negotiated their identity in the western borderland of China from the eighth to the tenth century.
Allison Mitchell is a Ph.D. student in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. She studies 20th-century African American history, focusing on Black political organizing during the Civil Rights Movement.
Matt Ito is a Hawaiʻi-born Asian American settler from Honolulu, Oʻahu and Ph.D student in English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His research interests include Hawaiian literature and methodologies, Place-based pedagogy, and Tradition Ecological Knowledge and Wisdom in Natural Resource Management in Hawaiʻi. Much of his work blends his love for fishing and the ocean with Hawaiian perspectives and practices of kuleana (responsibility) and lawaiʻa pono (fishing with a sense of care/balance/harmony).
Jalane Schmidt is Director of the UVA Democracy Initiative’s Memory Project, and Associate Professor of Religious Studies. She teaches courses on race, religion, and social change movements, and is the author of Cachita’s Streets: The Virgin of Charity, Race & Revolution in Cuba, a study of Cuban national identity, religion, and public events. A scholar-activist in Charlottesville, Virginia, Schmidt plans and leads public history events focused upon Civil War memory, Jim Crow, and local African American history. She cofounded the 2019-2020 Monumental Justice Virginia campaign which successfully lobbied the Virginia General Assembly to overturn a century-old state law which had prohibited localities from removing Confederate statues.
Mehdy Elouassi is a third-year undergraduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences, in the History Distinguished Majors Program and also majoring in Economics with a concentration in International Economics. Since his first semester on Grounds, he has been involved in the Religion Politics and Conflict program and research lab, as well as the Forums Curriculum. Outside of class, he is active in Student Council, the Virginia Interfaith Coalition, and the Jefferson Literary & Debating Society. His intellectual interests include the interaction of Islam and modernity, post-colonial thought, and the intersection of democracy and capitalism.
Abdullah Paracha received his BA in History, with a focus on the Middle East and South Asia from the University of Virginia in Spring 2020. As an undergraduate, he was involved with Madison House and the Islamic Society of Central Virginia, the local mosque. He is interested in the role that Charlottesville plays as a refugee hub, and hopes to bring more awareness to the community here.
Hibah Shems Berhanu is a third-year student at the University of Virginia.
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