RIC is pleased to announce the winners of its first Summer Undergraduate Collaborative Research Grants: Yasmine Bolden (’25) and Natalie Wang (’24).

RIC is also pleased to announce the winner of the RIC Inheritance Baltimore–Dean’s Undergraduate Research Award: Emma Petite (’24).

Bolden will complete a research project on Black Feminist Poetics, with a focus on Baltimore, inspired by poet Lucille Clifton. Wang will complete a research project comparing past moments of student activism on the JHU campus, with a focus on pushes for curricular change. Bolden’s project will be mentored by Sheharyar Imran and Wang’s by Nathan Connolly.

Petite will complete a year-long project the Black Panther Party, with a focus on Baltimore. She will collaborate on an exhibit of rare archival materials and a public presentation of new research on the Panthers, planned for 2024. Petite’s project will be mentored by Victoria Harms and Stuart Schrader, with the guidance of Heather Furnas.

The grants are funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through Inheritance Baltimore: Arts and Education for Black Liberation, with additional support of the Sheridan Libraries. RIC congratulates the winners, and thanks the other applicants. Watch out for events next year where the grantees will present their research. Additional Inheritance Baltimore and Sheridan Libraries grant winners will be announced soon.

(At top is a photo of Black students on the steps of Shriver Hall, 1972, from Retrospective JHU.)