Grants in Action

Celebrating Scholarship

Vassar Grants in Action highlights and celebrates the grant funding, principal investigators, and project leadership that enrich faculty research and scholarship, institutional programs and priorities, and the student experience at Vassar.

English Professor Amitava Kumar is Author of The Green Book, a Follow-up to The Yellow Book of 2023

Amitava Kumar, Helen D. Lockwood Professor of English, is the author of The Green Book, newly recently published by HarperCollins India (December 2024), and the final volume in a trilogy that launched in 2022 with The Blue Book, a comprehensive perspective on the Covid-19 pandemic, and continued in 2023 with The Yellow Book, on overcoming adversity.

Photo diptych with headshots of Chris Bjork and Bill Hoynes.

Christopher Bjork, Professor of Education, and William Hoynes, Professor of Sociology, Publish New Book

Christopher Bjork, Chair and Professor of Education on the Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. Chair and Coordinator of Teacher Education, and William Hoynes, Professor of Sociology on the Jane Baker Nord ’42 Chair in Media Studies, are the authors of the recently published More than Just a Game: How the Youth Sports Industry Is Changing the Way We Parent and What to Do About It, published by Central Recovery Press.

Kahdeidra Monét Martin, Assistant Professor of Education, Selected for 2024–2026 STAR Fellowship

Kahdeidra Monét Martin, Assistant Professor of Education, was selected by the Literacy Research Association as a 2024–2025 STAR (Scholars of Color Transitioning into Academic Research Institutions) Fellow. Kahdeidra’s research, which explores strategies for culturally sustaining literacy instruction, uses qualitative and community-participatory methods to examine raciolinguistics and the co-naturalization of language, race, and spirituality in the lives of African descendant people globally.

Sumita Choudhury, Professor of History, Selected for Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) Membership

Mita Choudhury, Professor of History on the Evalyn Clark Chair, was selected by the Faculty in the School of Historical Studies for membership at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) during the 2025–26 academic year. In her fellowship term, she will be completing her book project entitled The Silent Chain: History and Reckoning in the Catholic Church, which focuses on the early modern French Church and centers sexual assault victims as relevant historical figures.

Kirsten Wesselhoeft, Associate Professor of Religion, Publishes New Book Fraternal Critique: The Politics of Muslim Community in France

Kirsten Wesselhoeft, Associate Professor of Religion, is the author of Fraternal Critique: The Politics of Muslim Community in France, appearing in March 2025 with University of Chicago Press. In her new book, she argues that dissent and argument can be potent forms of solidarity through an ethnography of French Muslim activism and close readings of recent French laws on religion.

Leslie Offutt honored at the American Historical Association’s Annual Meeting

Leslie Offutt, Associate Professor Emerita of History, was recently honored at the American Historical Association’s 2025 Annual Meeting at a Conference on Latin American History Session entitled Interstitial Spaces of Empire and Resistance in Latin America: A Panel Honoring Leslie Offutt.

Black and white image of two people standing outside, back to back, with fog all around them.

Emily Drummer, Visiting Assistant Professor of Film, Is the Recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, a Grant, and an Award

Emily Drummer, Visiting Assistant Professor of Film, received a MacDowell Fellowship, LEF Foundation grant, and NYSCA Support for Artists Award for her film project In the Keeping, which explores the human pursuit of an ideal image in the ever-changing, unwieldy body of a fish.

Denise Iris, Assistant Professor of Film, Receives NYSCA Grant for Her Film Dreams, Drooms, Dromes

Denise Iris, Assistant Professor of Film, received a New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Support for Artists Award for her feature film Dreams, Drooms, Dromes, which uses finger puppets to bring to life audio recordings of the yearly festival of the Rainbow Gathering.

Colin Echeverría Aitken wearing navy shirt with high collar against a gray background.

Colin Echeverría Aitken, Assistant Professor of Biology, Awarded Renewed NIH Funding

Colin Echeverría Aitken, Assistant Professor of Biology, was awarded renewed funding by the National Institutes of Health for his ongoing research project, The Role of the mRNA-entry Channel Arm of eIF3 in mRNA Recruitment.