ANDRÉA BECKER AND PRISCILLA BUSTAMANTE AWARDED DISSERTATION FELLOWSHIPS FOR RESEARCH ON WOMEN’S AND GENDERED ISSUES

Doctoral candidates Andréa Becker (Sociology) and Priscilla Bustamante (Psychology) were named 2021 WW Dissertation Fellows in Women’s Studies by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars. Each will receive a $5,000 award to cover expenses related to her dissertation research. Established 47 years ago, the fellowship is the only national program supporting doctoral work on women’s and gendered issues.  

Becker and Bustamante are among eight fellows selected for their promising scholarship and original and interdisciplinary research. 

Becker is preparing her dissertation, “I Just Wanted It Gone”: Examining “Wanted” Hysterectomies through Two Gendered Case Studies. In 2018, she received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which included an annual stipend of $34,000 for three years. In addition to academic papers, she has published articles in Teen Vogue and bitchmedia. Describing her research, Becker said that “a lot of social inequality can be found at the nexus of gender and health — from race and class stratification, to LGBT discrimination — and I hope to use my skills and energies toward raising awareness and hopefully helping to alleviate these issues.” She plans to pursue her research both in academia and through public sociology and writing.

Bustamante, who focuses on critical social psychology, titled her dissertation Sexual Misconduct in Everyday Policing: Experiences of and Resistance to State-Sanctioned Sexual Violence in New York City. She is a graduate fellow at CUNY BA where she manages the peer mentoring program and facilitates other initiatives. She also serves as assistant director of research at the School Participatory Action Research Collaborative at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education. She said that after completing her doctorate she hopes “to continue doing research to aid collective healing and liberation.” 

Becker and Bustamante join more than 600 fellows, who include recipients of MacArthurs, Guggenheims, Fulbrights, and a Pulitzer. Beverly Sanford, vice president of the Institute for Citizens and Scholars said, “Fellows from this program don’t just expand their own fields — for nearly half a century now, they’ve also helped build the field of women’s and gender studies across disciplines.”