Thanks to a gift from financial services organization TIAA-CREF, two Michigan State University graduate students will pursue research that focuses on the migration of African people around the world.
Kamahra Ewing, a doctoral student in the African American and Africa Studies Program, and Alexandra Gelbard, a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology, will each receive $36,000 to conduct their research.
Ewing will travel to Brazil this summer to study how Nigerian cinema is used as a socio cultural educational device within new and old African diaspora communities. Brazil is the largest African diaspora population outside of Africa.
Gelbard will spend the summer in Cuba researching the conga music genre and its role in forming identity within the African-descended neighborhood of Santiago de Cuba.
“The Ruth Simms Hamilton Graduate Merit Fellowship will allow me to primarily concentrate on how Brazilians identify with Nigerian cinema, also known as Nollywood, which would not have been possible otherwise,” Ewing said. “This summer I plan to visit Brazil and set up dates and exact locales for Nollywood showings in Salvador, Bahia, which will be held this fall.”
Named after longtime MSU social science professor Ruth Simms Hamilton, who died in 2003, the fellowship will provide tuition, stipends and research costs.
“Dr. Hamilton was an extraordinary educator and visionary scholar who was a leader in the study of the migrations of Africa’s people,” said MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon. “She expanded the frontiers of knowledge in urban, black studies and the African Diaspora. We are grateful to TIAA-CREF for this fellowship that recognizes graduate academic achievement and research at the cutting edge to carry forward Dr. Hamilton’s outstanding legacy at MSU.”
For decades, Hamilton worked with MSU graduate students to investigate the international presence and societal status of African descendants once they left the African continent, Simon said.
During her 35-year career at MSU, Hamilton was director and founder of the African Diaspora Research Project and a core faculty member of the African Studies Center and Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
In addition, she served as an executive board member for TIAA-CREF, also sitting on the board’s corporate governance and social responsibility committees.
In 2005, TIAA-CREF established the Ruth Simms Hamilton Research Fellowship at TIAA-CREF. The fellowship supported students throughout a six-year period, awarding fellowships to one or more graduate students studying the African diaspora at an accredited U.S. college or university.
By establishing this new endowment at MSU, TIAA-CREF has brought the fellowship back to the university where Hamilton taught, conducted research and wrote.
TIAA-CREF is a national financial services organization with $502 billion in assets under management and is the leading provider of retirement services in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields.