American Studies Welcomes New Graduate Cohort

Exceptional Cohort Joins American Studies: Exploring race, difference, exclusion and belonging through innovative historical, political and methodological lenses.

This fall, the Department of American Studies is thrilled to welcome an exceptional cohort of graduate students! These emergent scholars are poised to embark on an exciting journey, exploring the intricate social, political, and ideological facets of the American experience and its impacts around the world through innovative methodological and geographic lenses. In an extraordinary accomplishment, we're also proud to announce that all five members of this cohort have been awarded prestigious recruitment fellowships from the University of Maryland. We can't wait to see the transformative work they'll produce! Scroll down to discover the inspiring profiles of each student and learn about their fascinating research interests.

DRAMANE “BATI” BATIONO

Flagship Fellowship Recipient

Dramane’s research interests broadly orbit the African American experience in the United States. He specifically focuses on the African American entrepreneurial resilience during the era of segregation and explores how Black enterprises and communities defied the constraints of a segregated system by building economic institutions that served their needs. Dramane holds an M.A. in Business Administration and is a former Fulbright scholar. Dramane was involved in several development projects in his home country Burkina Faso and has a twin brother.

LANAI C. MCAULEY

President’s Fellowship and McNair Fellowship Recipient

Hello! My name is Lanai McAuley, and I recently graduated from Rutgers University, where I gained a strong academic foundation in African diasporic cultures and history, and experience in different fields of public history, like oral history, archival, and curatorial work. I am particularly interested in African diasporic food pathways and exploring the commonality between African­descended cultures and the contributions made by the African diaspora to food culture in America. As a long-time lover of Black storytelling and a recent lover of oral history, I aspire to use an oral history methodology to engage with my research, capturing and preserving the personal food traditions of those in the African diaspora.

DEVIN (VY) GRACE THOMPSON-ELUTRIO

McNair Fellowship Recipient

I am a recent graduate; I just completed my undergrad at UMD in May 2024. I was an English Honors student with a double minor in Law & Society and Sociology. I'm so happy that I get to continue my education in the American Studies Doctoral Program, where I will focus on Native Studies, 2SLGBTQ+ Studies, and Legal Policy. I am also so grateful that I get to continue to work with the Native and Indigenous Student Union (NAISU) in hopes of amplifying lndigeneity on campus and in the local community.

SCHERLY ANN VIRGILL

President’s Fellowship Recipient

Scherly earned her M.A, in Public History from California State University, Fullerton, and a B.A. in Philosophy from California State University, Northridge. Her doctoral research is dedicated to reclaiming both intellectual and archival spaces for Black Guatemalan stories. Her research interests encompass Oral History, Afrodiasporic Studies, Public and Digital Humanities, Digital Storytelling, Archival and Knowledge Production, Cultural Geography, and Mapping. Her research project, "The Garifuna Voices of Guatemala's Armed Conflict," was prominently featured in the Winter 2020 edition of the NACLA Report on the Americas. She currently serves as Outreach Coordinator for the Digital Ethnic Futures lnitiative at Cal State Fullerton, and is the Project Manager and Curator of the Homegrown Heroes Oral History Project at the Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California. Additionally, Virgill is one of three topic editors for Community Engaged Digital Humanities in Reviews in Digital Humanities, where she contributes to advancing community-engaged scholarship in the field.

MILLA WU

Flagship Fellowship Recipient

Milla Jingtong Wu (any pronouns) holdds a B.A.s in Black Studies and English from University California Santa Barbara. Prior to matriculating at UMD, they were the academic advisor for the Black Studies department at UCSB. Their primary research interests include the histories and material effects of racialization in U.S. Chinatowns, the construction of deviancy in urban geographies, carcerality within the homeless services sector, and ethnographies of how homeless drug users understand their autonomy and interface with homeless services. Their research is driven by politics of harm reduction, anti-carcerality, and Marxist analysis and politics. Their other interests include East Asian Marxist studies, particularly Chinese and Korean constructions of socialism, and the political economy of Taiwan pre- and post-1949.