Public Scholar Alumni

Each year, we select 6-8 graduate students from across the Vanderbilt University campus to become Public Scholars.  It has been our pleasure to work with the following Public Scholar alumni, as they combined their educational backgrounds and creative passions to realize community focused projects across middle Tennessee.

Keitlyn Alcantara, Ph.D. (Anthropology)
Food and Identity
2017-2018 cohort

Sara Beck, Ph.D. (Psychology)
Colleen Russo, Ph.D. (Psychology)
Join in the Song!
2015-2016 cohort

Kelsea Best, Ph.D. (Earth and Environmental Sciences)
In Their Own Words: An interactive story map of Bangladeshi environmental migrants
2020-2022 cohort

Simone Boyd (Citizen Scholar)
North Nashville: Community Development vs. Gentrification
2020-2022 cohort

Rebecca Bria, Ph.D. (Anthropology)
Reclaiming Value and Community through a Hualcayan Prehistoric Textile Handcraft Enterprise
2014-2015 cohort

Iliza Butera, Ph.D. (Neuroscience)
Elementary Neuroscience: Learning about the Brain in Grade School
2015-2016 cohort

Tristan Call, Ph.D. (Anthropology)
Low-wage Labor in Nashville’s Cultural Industries
2016-2017 cohort

Anne Charlton, MFA (English)
Toward Holistic Healing: Integrating Cancer Experiences through Creative Expressive Writing Workshops
2015-2016 cohort

Ana Christina da Silva Iddings, Ph.D. (Faculty Scholar)
2016-2017 cohort

Sara Eccleston, Ph.D. (Community Research & Action)
Developing and Implementing a ‘Whiteness & Christianity’ Curriculum for the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee
2018-2020 cohort

David Florian (PhD Candidate, Biomedical Engineering)
Teaching Automation: Exploring the Fundamentals of Computer Controlled Motion and Preparing Nashville Youth for Jobs in Automation
2020-2022 cohort

Jim Fraser, Ph.D. (Human & Organizational Development, American Studies, Institute for Energy & the Environment, and Women’s & Gender Studies)
Amie Thurber, Ph.D. (Community Research & Action)
The People’s Guide to Nashville
2015-2016 cohort

Anna Guengerich, Ph.D. (Faculty Scholar)
2016-2017 cohort

Thushara Gubda, Ph.D. (Civil & Environmental Engineering)
Risky Business: Using Games to Promote (and Understand) Farmer Decisions in Sri Lanka
2014-2015 cohort

Jyoti Gupta, Ph.D. (Community Research & Action)
2016-2017 cohort

Emily Habeck, M.Ed. (Community Development and Action & Master, Theological Studies)
The Role of the Artist in Community: Creating Meaning in a Time of Crisis
2020-2021 cohort

Aimi Hamraie, Ph.D. (Medicine, Health & Society and American Studies)
The “Mapping Access Project” Map-A-Thon
2015-2016 cohort

Stacy Houston, Ph.D. (Sociology)
Rachel McKane, Ph.D. (Sociology)
The Old Boys’ Club in Higher Education: A Social Network Analysis of College/University Leadership and its Role on Faculty Diversity
2016-2017 cohort

Megan L. Jordan, Ph.D. (Sociology) 
Movement Art: A Coalition-driven Multimedia Campaign to Encourage Sustainable Civic Engagement of the Rising American Electorate of Middle Tennessee
2020-2022 cohort

Magana Kabugi, Ph.D. (English)
“Communiversity” at the Atlanta University Center: A Model for University-Community Engagement
2018-2020 cohort

Anna Kasdan (PhD Candidate, Neuroscience)
Deborah Levy, PhD (Hearing & Speech Services)
Music and the Arts for the Aphasia Group of Middle Tennessee
2019-2021 cohort

Jennifer Kahn, Ph.D. (Teaching & Learning)
Digitally, Spatially Mapping the “Faces of Nashville”
2014-2015 cohort

Yu-Ri Kim, Ph.D. (Sociology)
Aging on the Dance Floor: A Video Project to Document an Emerging Dance Genre in South Korea
2018-2020 cohort

Elizabeth Lanphier, Ph.D. (Philosophy)
What is Home?
2017-2018 cohort

Sarah Lee (PhD Candidate, Teaching & Learning)
Lights, Science, Action: Designing Socio-dramatic Play Programs with Bi/Multilingual Communities
 2020-2022 cohort

Gabriela Leon-Perez, Ph.D. (Sociology)
Welcoming Latino Immigrants to the Library: A Needs Assessment for the Nashville Public Library
2017-2018 cohort

Leah Lomotey-Nakon, Ph.D. (Community Development and Divinity)
2016-2017 cohort

Robert Marx, Ph.D. (Community Research & Action)
A Poet Speaks in Many Voices: Collaborative Research and the Dissemination of Spoken Word Poetry Residencies
2015-2016 cohort

Jesse Montgomery, Ph.D. (English)
The Historical and Cultural Importance of the Young Patriots Organization and its Impact on Americana Music
2018-2020 cohort

Kathryn Morgan (PhD Candidate, Community Research & Action)
Design Your Neighborhood: A Design-based Civics Curriculum for Metro Nashville Public Schools
2019-2021 cohort

Megan Myers, Ph.D. (Spanish & Portuguese)
Re-Mapping Hispaniola and the Dominican-Haitian Relationship
2015-2016 cohort

Tin Nguyen (PhD Candidate, Vanderbilt Brain Institute) 
Visual and Written Narrative Storytelling of the Lived and Shared Experiences of Poverty
2020-2022 cohort

Daniel Perrucci (PhD Candidate, Engineering)
An Exploratory Analysis of the Use of Imagery Collections to Support Dynamic and Equitable Disaster Relief
2019-2021 cohort

Chelsea Peters, Ph.D. (Civil and Environmental Engineering)
Farzana’s Journey: A Bangladesh Story of the Water, Land, and People
2016-2017 cohort

Emma Reimers (Ph.D. Candidate, Learning+ Design and Comparative Media Analysis and Practice) 
A Shared Experience of Place through an Auditory Exploration of the Jefferson Street Historic Music Corridor
2020-2022 cohort

Leah Roberts, Ph.D. (Human & Organizational Development)
Peer Sex Education for LGBTQI Youth
2017-2019 cohort

Jason Rodriguez, Ph.D. (Community Research & Action)
Two Nashville’s: A Film Exploring Nashville Homelessness
2018-2020 cohort

Daniel Romero Suarez (PhD Candidate, Spanish & Portuguese)
Language or to Feel at Home: Poetry Workshops in Spanish with the Nashville Latinx Community
2019-2021 cohort

Cassandra Scaffidi, Ph.D. (Anthropology)
Pathways to Preservation: The Potential of Film and VHR (Very-High Resolution Imagery) to Track and Prevent Archeological Site Looting
2014-2015 cohort

Abigail Searfoss, Ph.D. (Chemical & Physical Biology)
Assessing the Impact of Urbanization on Wildlife
2018-2020 cohort

Ben Shapiro, Ph.D. (Space, Learning & Mobility)
A Mondrian Transcript of Museum Engagement
2014-2015 cohort

Anna Silverstein, MFA (Creative Writing)
Expressive Writing for Folks Affected by Cancer
2015-2016 cohort

Rachel Skaggs, Ph.D. (Sociology)
Valuing Music: Analysis of Nashville Songwriters’ Income Streams and Career Dynamics
2014-2015 cohort

Richard Sowienski, MS (Religion and the Arts)
Write Your Life: A Creative Nonfiction and College-admission Essay Workshop for Under-served High School Students
2020-2021 cohort

Rachel Underwood (PhD Candidate, Sociology)
PhotoVoice: Listening to Nashville’s Female Homeless Population Tell Their Stories
2020-2021 cohort

Marianne VanDevere, MFA (English)
The Comedy Collective
2016-2018 cohort

Lauren Vogelstein (PhD Candidate, Teaching and Learning)
Embodying Math in Dance
2018-2020 cohort