Two Emory Scholars Earn Prestigious Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowships
Two doctoral students from Emory University have been named 2026 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellows, joining a national cohort of 50 scholars recognized for advancing bold, interdisciplinary approaches to humanities and social science research.
Presented by the American Council of Learned Societies with support from the Mellon Foundation, the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship program supports doctoral students pursuing innovative dissertation research that expands traditional academic methods, formats, and collaborations beyond the university. The 2026 fellows were selected from a pool of more than 1,000 applicants through a rigorous multi-stage peer review process involving more than 170 scholars nationwide.
Each fellow receives up to $52,000 in funding, including a stipend, research and professional development support, and mentorship funding designed to expand scholarly networks and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Representing Emory in this year’s cohort are Rose Archer, a doctoral student in African American Studies, and Ololade Faniyi, a doctoral student in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Archer’s project, Narrating the Womb: Speculative Medicine and the (Re)Framing of Obstetric Grammars Across Digital and Embodied Terrains, examines how reproductive health inequities are shaped not only through patient-provider interactions, but also through the hidden digital infrastructures embedded within clinical documentation systems.
By bridging Black speculative thought, narrative medicine, and medical sociology, Archer’s mixed-methods research investigates how racialized assumptions in obstetric care become encoded into clinical notes and electronic medical records. Through qualitative interviews with Black mothers and analysis of unstructured clinical text, the project explores how digital systems can either reinforce or challenge barriers to reproductive justice.
Faniyi’s project, Technologies Beyond Man: African Feminist Reimaginings of the Human/Techno-Modernity, explores how African women working across digital and technological sectors are redefining the relationship between humanity, technology, and power.
Drawing on collaborative ethnographic research conducted in Nairobi, Abuja, Lusaka, and Cape Town, Faniyi examines the experiences of women data workers, feminist tech policy advocates, and women technology builders navigating global tech infrastructures. The project investigates how African women create networks of care, resistance, and alternative technological futures beyond dominant Euro-American and Chinese models of techno-modernity.
“The Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship recognizes scholars whose work is reshaping how we think about research, knowledge production, and public impact,” said Kimberly Jacob Arriola, vice provost for graduate affairs and dean of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies. “Rose Archer and Ololade Faniyi exemplify the kind of intellectually ambitious, interdisciplinary scholarship we are proud to support at Laney Graduate School. Their projects engage urgent global and societal questions while expanding the boundaries of doctoral research in deeply creative and community-centered ways.”
The 2026 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellows will pursue a wide range of research approaches that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries and scholarly formats. Projects in this year’s cohort include studies of female scribal practices in Medieval Europe, investigations into the weaponization of sound in the anti-abortion movement in the United States, analyses of resistance to ecological and state violence in the Niger Delta, and ethnographic explorations of sonic de/militarization across East Asia.
The fellowship program was launched in 2023 to encourage and recognize new forms of dissertation research that integrate interdisciplinary methods, collaborative knowledge production, and public-facing scholarship.