Shauna France is a junior majoring in history at the University of Southern California. Originally from San Mateo, California she is a graduate of Notre Dame High School in Belmont. Shauna became interested in the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program after a conversation with one of her professors. This conversation led to an inquiry about the program and culminated with her application and interview. Her research centers on early Spanish explorers in North America and their legacy in American history. She is focusing on understanding the impact of Spanish history and the modern relevance of the Hispanic legacy in North America, especially in light of recent immigration reform issues. Aiding in her research is her mentor, Dr. Kevin Starr, a history professor at USC. As former California state librarian and a renowned California historian, Dr. Starr has specialized in California and American history throughout his prestigious career. Upon her graduation from USC, Shauna plans to continue her study of American social history and foreign policy.

Laura is currently a senior studying History and American Studies, with a minor in Spanish. This is her second year in the Mellon Mays program, and she is very interested in the program’s goals of increasing diversity in higher education. After she graduates, she intends to pursue a Ph.D. degree and become a professor of History. At USC, she is involved in several extracurricular activities whose goals also relate to education for underrepresented groups, which is why the MMUF program especially appeals to her.
In graduate school, she plans to study Latin American history, and her current research project concerns the roles of women in Latin America and how these roles changed after the arrival of the Spanish. In particular, she is studying how various factors such as religion and race have influenced the ideas of marianismo (“the cult of feminine spiritual superiority”) and machismo, which strictly define model behavior for men and women. Laura plans to further analyze what role gender has played in Latin America in her graduate studies, and would also like to study how race and ethnicity continue to hold such importance. Also, as a result of her experiences studying abroad in Madrid, she plans to continue studying 15th and 16th century Spanish history, and how it influenced colonial Latin America.

Laura works with Roberto Lint Sagarena, an assistant professor with a joint appointment in Religion and American Studies, with whom she had previously worked on a project for the McNair Scholars Program regarding “self-segregation” and the experiences of minority students in college. As a result of this mentorship, she is examining different explanations for the marianismo phenomenon, and is incorporating elements of the Catholic religious culture, such as the cult-like devotion to the Virgen de Guadalupe, into her research.

Tamiel is very outgoing and always on the run. She is on her way to Madrid, Spain to study Spanish and international relations for the fall 2006 semester. She is a junior at the University of Southern California, where she is majoring in Anthropology and International Relations. During her freshman year she was awarded membership to the Alpha Lamda Delta Honor Society. During her sophomore year she was secretary of the USC NAACP and Higher Learning Ministries. She has consistently worked as a tutor, and stage manager. She loves children and maintains her position as a recreation assistant for the City of Los Angeles and as an aide for Palisades Charter High School. She plans to attend graduate school and become an international mediator, and children’s advocate. Tamiel has an interest in politics and plans to help develop better child socialization methods.

Tamiel is a Mellon Fellow which offers her an opportunity to pursue her anthropological interest in child socialization. Summer 2006 she observed kindergarteners and their conflicts at a day-care. She observed children during their daily activities inside and outside of the classrooms at the facility. The paper examines the disciplinary language used by the staff to resolve the children’s conflicts and promote feelings of restraint and competition. It also classifies the children’s personalities by their behavior and conflict resolution methods. Next year she plans to do a comparative study between kindergarteners and pre-teens.

Tamiel’s advisor is Dr. Erin Moore, a member of the USC anthropology department. She has diligently worked with Tamiel, providing her with direction. Dr. Moore has published two books on dispute settlement and made an award winning video. She specializes in cultural anthropology. She has conducted field research in Rajasthan, India, and Michoacan, Mexico.

Tamiel was born September 1, 1986, in Los Angeles, California, to proud parents Joyce Roseman and George Holloway. They are both practicing attorneys. She has an older brother, Maide Tuhu Holloway and a younger sister, Antara Savannah Holloway.

Tamiel developed a knack for public speaking at Windsor Hills Elementary School. She attended Palms Middle School and Palisades Charter High School. Tamiel is athletic, participating in basketball, gymnastics and ballet. In middle school she was a cheer leader and in high school she was a member of the golf team. At Palisades High School she maintained high grades and participated in Career Based Outreach Program, Advancement Via Individual Determination and founded AIDS Awareness, and participated in the gospel choir.

Vanessa Hongsathavij is a third year student at the University of Southern California. She is currently pursuing a double major in Philosophy and American Studies, with a minor in East Asian Area Studies. The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program has provided her with an invaluable opportunity to investigate and further explore her academic interests outside of the classroom. In particular, her research interest focuses on female migrant workers and gender relations among Asian cultures, including China, South Korea, and Thailand.

Dorinne Kondo, Professor of Anthropology and Asian American Studies at USC, serves as her mentor. Dr. Kondo’s class, Asian American Performance, and her book, About Face, were inspiring and seminal for Vanessa’s academic development and desire to pursue own research through the Mellon program.

In the future, Vanessa hopes to pursue a dual master’s degree in political theory and public policy and establish a career as an international development specialist. She would like to eventually return to the university setting as a professor and contribute meaningfully to her field of research.

Wendy Mata

Wendy Mata is a senior majoring in astronomy. The Mellon Undergraduate Fellowship Program is important to her because of the program’s commitment to increasing the number of underrepresented populations in higher education, and its support for undergraduate research. Upon graduating from USC Wendy plans to pursue a Ph.D. in astronomy and eventually teach at the university level and work as a research scientist in either planetary science, cosmology, astrophysics, or extragalactic astronomy. Her Mellon faculty mentor is Dr. Edward Rhodes from the Physics & Astronomy Department. Dr. Rhodes specializes in both ground- and space-based observational helioseismology. Wendy and the other members of Dr. Rhodes’s group have been working on generating and analyzing 22 short-duration time-series of data taken by the six telescopes of the GONG network. They have analyzed the temporal shifts in the solar p-mode frequencies and compared them with different indicators of solar activity. They are now interested in working with MDI data from the SOHO spacecraft.

Pursuing a double major in American Studies and Ethnicity and History, Adriana Resendez is about to embark on her fourth year at USC. She became interested in the Mellon Program after her Professor; Roberto Lint-Sagarena encouraged her to apply to the program and explained how beneficial it would be. After researching the program, Adriana found that it was geared towards encouraging her to achieve a Ph.D. and therefore knew instantly that this was the program for her. As a Latina woman, she understands the challenges that face her and is motivated by the desire to diversify the world of academia.

In addition, Adriana has been fortunate enough to receive the support of some of the most sought after faculty. Her faculty mentor, Professor Roberto Lint-Sagarena, whom was previously mentioned, has been instrumental in supporting and guiding her towards the path of higher education. After dropping out of high school and attending community college for eight years, Roberto Lint-Sagarena was told by an advisor that he could attend a four year college. After completing his undergrad at UC Santa Cruz, he went on to be one of five students accepted into his graduate program for Religion at Princeton University. It is his determination and support that have encouraged and allowed Adriana to see that she too can obtain a doctoral degree. He has mentored and generously given his time to a number of students and it is this cycle of help that Adriana would like to model. The two courses that Adriana has taken with Professor Sagarena have sparked and engaged her interests in areas that she would like to further pursue through her research.

Adriana’s research interests include but are not limited to women’s migration patterns in the 20th century, bracero wives and how they were affected by the physical absence of their husbands, and how Mexican women are able to create a sense of identity and community once they have immigrated to the Untied States from Mexico. Her academic goal would be to obtain her PhD working under scholars such as George Sanchez, Vicki Ruiz, and Albert Camarillo. She would like to receive her doctoral degree in American Studies and Ethnicity or History. After obtaining her PhD, Adriana would like to teach at a Tier One research institution and have the ability to give back to students as Professor Lint-Sagarena has done for her. It is here where she will be able to pursue her passion of helping others by encouraging them to reach beyond their dreams.

Marcelo Sousa is a senior at the University of Southern California. He is pursuing a degree in Art History with a focus on contemporary art and visual culture. Marcelo’s current research project investigates visual representations of gay men during the 1960s in San Francisco in order to recover the complex dialogue between queer images and the emerging radical ideologies that informed them. Marcelo believes that representations of the male body during this period reveal complex tensions between the radical discourses gay militants proposed to rouse, and a tradition of depicting homoerotic bodies outside of specifically political contexts. His project explores how communities deeply invested in the social changes shaped by civil rights and antiwar movements constructed representations of homosexual male bodies in the 1960s as a means of imagining a new form of gay sociability, but in doing so, also produced images that did not always conform to the political and ideological discourses of an emerging homosexual counterculture. With the support of the Mellon Mays Fellowship and UC Berkeley’s Summer Research Opportunity Program, Marcelo is conducting his research in Los Angeles, Berkeley, and San Francisco. He is currently working at UC Berkeley under the supervision of Dr. Whitney Davis, Professor of History & Theory of Ancient & Modern Art. In the fall of 2006, Marcelo will continue to work with Dr. Richard Meyer, Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Southern California. His honors thesis will examine the subversive films of Bruce La Bruce and the art of Alex Donis, both artists whose works respond the ongoing war on terror. In addition to studying contemporary art, Marcelo is also interested in Ancient and Modern art, feminist and queer theory, and museum studies. He is currently learning Attic Greek and German, and will be applying to graduate school in the fall of 2006. His goal is to pursue a Ph.D in art history, and teach at the University level.

Ebenge Usip is a fourth-year senior majoring in physics and minoring in music recording. His interest in the Mellon program stems from his desire to pursue a graduate degree in the physical sciences. Currently, Ebenge is participating in a research project under the auspice of Dr. Rajiv Kalia of both the CACS research group and the Physics department. As part of his project Ebenge has been writing a molecular dynamics program that uses classical dynamics and statistical mechanics to simulate an ensemble of Argon atoms arranged in a face-centered cubic (FCC) lattice. Furthermore, as a senior, Ebenge is currently preparing to apply to graduate programs later this fall and hopes to pursue a graduate degree in applied physics.