Undergraduate and Graduate Student Fellows

Katherine Everhart, Graduate Research Fellow

Katherine Everhart is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Vanderbilt University. Katherine holds a BA degree in Sociology from UNC-Asheville and a MA degree in Sociology from UNC-Charlotte.  Katherine is currently a research assistant with The Curb Center and The Vanderbilt Center for Nashville Studies. Her research interests are gender and culture, specifically music. In particular, she is currently researching music and autobiographical memory, as well as migration patterns of musicians in the United States.

Aimee Fullman, Research Fellow

I am an independent arts and cultural policy consultant specializing in North American comparative cultural policy, cultural diplomacy and exchange, cultural diversity, and culture and technology. In 2007, I became the principle investigator and project advisor for the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation’s Cultural Diplomacy Initiative. In the past, I served a 15-month assignment as an Associate Expert for the Canadian Cultural Observatory and a five-year tenure with the Center for Arts & Culture, an American non-partisan cultural policy think tank, as a Program Officer and Administrator. In the United States, I have worked primarily on behalf of international programs, executing and managing UNESCO, State Department, USAID, Fulbright and the President’s Committee on the Arts & Humanities contracts. My academic background includes an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies (International Cultural Policy and Public/Nonprofit Administration) from George Mason University and a B.A. in International Affairs with a minor in dance from George Washington University. A complete survey of my work and clients can be found at www.aimeefullman.com.

Yang Gao, Graduate Student, Sociology

Yang Gao is a PhD Candidate of sociology at Vanderbilt University. Yang has a BA in sociology from Peking University in China and a Master’s degree in sociology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Yang is interested in the sociological study of communication, mass media, and culture in general. As a recipient of the 2009-2010 Social Science Dissertation Fellowship from Vanderbilt University, Yang is currently working on her dissertation on the consumption of American TV shows by contemporary Chinese college students.

Matt Grimes, Graduate Student, Organization Studies

After graduating from the College of William and Mary with a degree in business, Matt spent four years as a director of research at the Corporate Executive Board, a Washington DC-based business research firm, which serves executives throughout the Fortune 1,000 and broader Global 4,000 companies. He completed an MSc in Management Research at Oxford University in 2007, where he became involved in the emerging conversation on social entrepreneurship through his engagement with the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. In his third year of doctoral studies at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Matt’s research interests are focused on the origins and impacts of “social entrepreneurship,” a label increasingly given to individuals and organizations that employ entrepreneurial methods to serve the public good. Specifically his work explores the collective action and organizational identities associated with social entrepreneurship and asks whether or not such activities and identities hold consequences for the public good or are purely rhetorical.

Guy Kopsombut, Engineer/Artist

Guy Kopsombut recently graduated from Vanderbilt University majoring in computer engineering and minoring in engineering management. Though he is very interested in software development, Guy is also a self taught artist/cartoonist. He has been published in the Vanderbilt Hustler, Vanderbilt Political Review, and The Vanderbilt Slant. He is currently working on opening his own business and applying for graduate school.

Roxanna Shohadaee, 2010 Summer Embedded Artist-in-Residence

Roxanna Shohadaee is a Hume-Fogg graduate and an undergraduate printmaking/environmental studies student from the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Roxanna was co-sponsored in partnership with the Physics & Astronomy summer program, where she worked as an “embedded artist” with science teams to collaboratively create art inspired by and infused with science.