The department would like to congratulate SPPO graduate student Luana Lamberti for receiving a Presidential Fellowship for the 2021-2022 academic year. The Presidential Fellowship is the most prestigious award given by the Graduate School to "recognize outstanding scholarly accomplishments" on the part of current graduate students.  The award provides financial support so that the awardee can "devote one year of full-time study to the completion of the dissertation..."

Starting in AU21, Luana will be dedicating herself full-time to her dissertation "Language and the African Diaspora in Latin America: Afro-Yungueño Spanish and Helvécia Portuguese."  Her study responds to the need for recognition of the African diaspora's contribution to the languages spoken in two Afro-descendant communities in Latin America. Specifically, her research focuses on language contact phenomena from Afro-Bolivian Spanish, spoken in the Bolivian Yungas valley (a.k.a., Afro-Yungueño), and Afro-Brazilian Portuguese, spoken in Helvécia (Bahia), Brazil (a.k.a., Helvécia Portuguese). These language varieties are the result of contact between Spanish and Portuguese, and several Niger-Congo languages, mainly from the Bantu group and Yorùbá. Through nuanced theoretical approaches combining sociohistorical, linguistic, and ethnographic research methods, her dissertation explores how the languages in contact in Bolivia and Brazil and their shared sociohistorical background have contributed to these linguistic similarities. 

This is wonderful news and a great recognition of Luana's accomplishments.

Congratulations on this wonderful recognition, Luana!

If you wish to apply for the Presidential Fellowship in the future, please note that competitions will be held once per year in the autumn semester starting in the 2021-2022 academic year. For additional information about the Presidential Fellowship, click here.