Arts & Sciences Names 27 New Graduate Fellows

UVA’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences has named 27 graduate students as recipients of its 2025-2026 fellowship awards, recognizing academic excellence and supporting research across disciplines in the arts and humanities, social sciences and sciences.

Funded through endowed gifts and donor-supported initiatives, the fellowships provide critical resources that allow students to focus on research and professional development. The expanded cohort underscores the College’s sustained commitment to graduate education and the vital role these scholars play in advancing knowledge at UVA and beyond.

“These fellowships are an investment in both discovery and the people driving it,” said Brent Gunnoe, associate dean for graduate education in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. “They provide our graduate students with the time and support to pursue ambitious work across disciplines, and they reflect the generosity of donors who believe deeply in the mission of graduate education.”

In addition to the recognition of excellence and living support, each fellowship recipient receives a $5,000 research and education fund, which can be used to support the fellows’ scholarship, learning and professional development.

The recipients represent a broad range of programs across Arts & Sciences, reflecting the depth and diversity of inquiry at UVA.

Meet a few of this year’s Graduate Fellows.

Siyi Gao, Department of Statistics

Siyi Gao, a second-year Ph.D. student in statistics, studies how complex networks — from social groups to brain cells to financial markets — reveal hidden patterns.

Her research focuses on “graph learning” and network analysis, developing mathematical models that help make sense of large, complex datasets. “The data is rich but can be very noisy,” she said, “which makes it hard to understand what’s useful or what’s meaningful in the data. “We develop algorithms that surface the information hidden within.”

Gao was drawn to the field while studying economic experiments during her master’s program. “That was where I first learned about this work,” she said, and she was drawn to UVA to work with faculty who specialize in the subject.

Her research has broad applications across many fields. For example, in healthcare, network analysis can accelerate the pace of drug development by signaling the progression of diseases like Alzheimer’s. In the fields of finance and commerce, it can improve market risk management and improve product recommendation algorithms.

Ultimately, the Bynum Family Graduate Fellowship will support the intensive computational demands of her research. “To validate our models, we need to perform large-scale simulations,” she said. “The datasets we work with are often so large that requires significant computing power. The fellowship will help make that possible.”

Henry Yeung, Department of Environmental Sciences

Henry Yeung, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in environmental sciences, uses high-resolution satellite data to study environmental change at an unprecedented level of detail. His work focuses on mapping trees in coastal ecosystems to the point where he can account for each individual tree on a national scale.

“This has not been able to be done before,” he said. “I think this is the first time we’ve been able to map out all these coastal ghost forests in such detail.”

Combining satellite imagery with artificial intelligence, Yeung aims to uncover patterns that can inform environmental research and “do good things for the society.” His interest in the field began early, inspired by nature documentaries and a love of photography. “I like beautiful images,” he said, “so I wanted to 

find a way to combine the two things…and to do it in such a way that has real environmental benefits.”

After graduation, Yeung plans to continue in academia, pursuing a career in research and teaching. “I personally really enjoy doing research,” he said, adding that he hopes to find opportunities to inspire that love in the next generation.

The Thompson Dean Family Foundation Fellowship will support conference travel and help him share his work more broadly. “I see it as an opportunity to share my research with the world,” he said.

Sharanya Banerjee, Corcoran Department of History

Sharanya Banerjee studies gender and sexuality in early modern South Asia, focusing on the 17th and 18th centuries. In her current research, she examines how elite women exercised authority within and outside of formal power structures.

"We have this idea that authority is equal to visibility,” she said. “But what I’m arguing is that even wives and daughters and mothers, who were hidden inside their homes, produced authority in different ways.”

Her work explores how influence within the household shaped broader political life. “The public and the private were almost infused,” she said. “The queen raises the king and often has stakes in high politics, just not visible to us all the time.”

A first-year graduate student, Banerjee’s interest in gender roles is rooted in her upbringing in India, where she saw traditional expectations challenged at home. “In a society that puts many restrictions on women, I’ve been given every freedom and have seen gender roles getting flipped very easily in my house,” she said. This made her aware of the privileges she has that many others don’t, prompting her to question “what we understand by authority and power when it comes to women.”

The Sloane Endowed Graduate Fellowship will support her study of the Persian language, which will be critical to her research. “I’m extremely grateful,” she said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to read many important historical documents.”

Emma Toner, Department of Psychology

Emma Toner, a sixth-year Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology, studies how digital tools can better support mental health — particularly for anxiety, loneliness and social connection.

Working in the PACT Lab (Program for Anxiety, Cognition and Treatment), Toner conducts research that tracks people’s experiences in real time. “We use mobile phones and other technology like wearable sensors to assess to assess symptoms in daily life and get a more ecologically valid understanding of how things like anxiety and loneliness unfold,” she said. Her work also focuses on “just-in-time adaptive interventions,” delivering support “where and when people need them” through digital platforms.

Toner plans to pursue a career in an academic medical center, combining research with clinical practice. “I really see them as informing each other,” she said. “I want to see what people are actually experiencing and use that to inform my research.”

The Elizabeth and Walker Simmons Bicentennial Fellowship will support conference travel and advanced training in computational methods. “It was really meaningful, not only as a recognition for my research, but also as recognition from the UVA community,” she said.

The list of 2025-2026 graduate fellows also includes 

• Ryan Singsank, Corcoran Department of History — Norman A. Graebner Bicentennial Fellows Fund
• Sydney Willis, Department of Chemistry — Littleton Glover Endowed Graduate Fellowship Fund
• Jean-Marc Pruit, Department of Politics — Purtill Endowed Fund for Graduate Student Support for the Politics Department
• Andi Wood, Department of Politics — Arani Family Grand Challenge Fellowship Fund
• Diego Ibarra Hoyos, Department of Physics — William Lewis Piotrowski Fellowship Fund
• Buğra Güngül, Department of Biology — Matthew and Sharla Wilson Endowed Graduate Fellowship Fund
• Eric Yde, Department of Economics — John L. Nau III Graduate Fellowship
• Madhumita Chatterjee, Corcoran Department of History — Bynum Family Graduate Fellowship Fund
• Margaret Matheson, Corcoran Department of History — John L. Nau III Endowed Graduate Fellowships in American History Fund
• Sareena Chadha, Department of Psychology — Stepanian Endowed Graduate Fellowships Fund
• Marissa Kessenich, Department of English — Stepanian Endowed Graduate Fellowships Fund
• Eric Robertson, Department of Economics — Jackson Farrell Endowed Graduate Fellowship in Economics
• Victor Yengle, Department of Sociology — Steven M. and Joyce E. Tadler Endowed Graduate Fellowship for Global Development Studies
• Ashwin Nair, Department of Economics — Everette L. Doffermyre, Jr. Endowed Graduate Fellowships in Economics and the Law
• Diego Briones, Department of Economics — Granite Oak Endowment for Graduate Fellowships in Economics
• Mollie Morrow, Department of Chemistry — Carey Mignerey Endowment for Graduate Fellowships in Arts & Sciences
• Charles Oswald, Department of Philosophy — Lisa A. Smith Endowed Graduate Fellowship Fund
• Benjamin Faulkner, Department of Chemistry — Donald F. Hunt Endowment for Graduate Fellowships in Chemistry
• Isabelle Ostertag, Department of Art — J. Sanford Miller Graduate Fellowships in the Arts
• Catherine Fan, Department of Art — J. Sanford Miller Graduate Fellowships in the Arts
• Jacob Green, Department of Media Studies — J. Sanford Miller Graduate Fellowships in the Arts
• Brian Lindgren, Department of Music — J. Sanford Miller Graduate Fellowships in the Arts
• Ingrid Magalhaes, Department of Politics — Mark D. Brazeal CLAS ’90 Endowed Graduate Fellowship