Research Grants/Internships
The Helen Terry MacLeod Research Grant
The MacLeod grant supports undergraduate honors research on issues having to do with women or gender, or research that brings a feminist analysis to bear on a problem or set of questions. Students currently working on honors theses in any field are eligible to apply. The $1000 grant is to be used to further research.
The grant honors the life of Helen Terry MacLeod (1901-1994) who did not herself have a college education but who helped support the undergraduate, graduate, and professional school educations of her grandchildren, including Joan MacLeod Heminway ’83.
View a list of all Helen Terry MacLeod Research Grant recipients
2011-12 Helen Terry MacLeod Research Grant Recipients
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The Conceptualization of Stigma Associated |
Ann’s research seeks to understand more fully the conceptualization, definition, and roots of stigma, a term used widely and a lived experience confronted by many with HIV/AIDS, especially women. She will draw on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with HIV-positive people in two communities in Botswana, in addition to a critical overview of trends in the scholarly literature. Scholars within public health and anthropology have uncritically depended on an outdated and abstract definition of stigma, which has surely limited not only social theory, but also research and interventions aimed at minimizing the social effects of disease and its treatment. Instead, this work will be grounded in the experiences, words, and views of the women Ann encountered in Botswana. Social theorizing on the relationship between the virus and the lived experiences of these individuals, especially women and children, fundamentally seeks to understand their suffering and why they have not benefited as much as public health claims they do from the expected amelioration of stigma that accompanies HIV treatment. This thesis seeks to explain the relationship between disease and stigma, as well as the impact of an epidemiologically-successful public health intervention on the social lives of those treated. |
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Emily Mepham, '12 "Working Mothers: Challenges and |
| Mepham’s thesis project examines the intersection of work and motherhood in the perinatal period. Her study follows Rhode Island women from the third trimester of pregnancy to 16 weeks postpartum, looking principally at measures of mood and sleep to examine challenges and conflicts in the period. Data will be collected through interviews and questionnaires at four time intervals. The project is designed to be holistic in its scope, which involves analysis of women’s roles in recent labor history and the socio-cultural context that surrounds motherhood and work. This study is intended to create an exploration of the perinatal period, with special emphasis on challenges, conflicts and barriers that women face, including identification of certain at-risk groups. The grant money will be used to facilitate the taping and transcription of interviews. | |
From 1995-2007 the Pembroke Center awarded Helen Terry MacLeod funds for an outstanding undergraduate honors thesis that addressed questions of gender or women, or that brought a feminist analysis to bear on a topic of study. MacLeod Prize recipients 1995-2007
The Barbara Anton Internship Grant
Undergraduate students doing an honors thesis involving an internship or volunteer work in a community agency are eligible to apply for the Barbara Anton research grant. The thesis and community work must be in some way related to the welfare of women and children, and the $1000 grant used to further research.
The grant commemorates Barbara Anton’s many contributions to the Pembroke Center over nearly two decades as director of the Pembroke Associates organization.
View a list of all Barbara Anton Internship Grant recipients
2011-12 Barbara Anton Internship Grant recipient
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Chishio Furukawa, '12 Reading by Solar Lamps, Replacing Kerosene Candles: Randomized Evaluation of Solar Lamps as an Alternative to Kerosene Candles for Children's Study in Rural Ugandan Households
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| Furukawa will conduct a randomized controlled trial on efficacy of solar lamps as alternative to kerosene candles in rural Uganda. Simple wick kerosene candles emit PM2.5 (particulate matter) - an order of magnitude higher than the World Health Organization standard while giving only dim light. Through replacement by solar-charged LED lamps, students would likely have improved health outcomes and school performance. Furukawa will choose 180 upper primary students and randomly distribute solar desk lamps supplied by the Barefoot Power Uganda to 90 students. The follow-up observations will be taken monthly up to December by self-report as well as spirometry. In combination with econometric analysis of household surveys, learning assessment surveys, and supplementary end-user phone surveys, this study uncovers indoor air pollution from lighting sources that may be significantly affecting the children who study by them at night. Through micro-economic modeling of intra-household distribution and purchasing decisions, it highlights how kerosene candles and solar lamps are impacting actual users. |
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The Linda Pei Undergraduate Research Grant
First awarded in 2008, the Linda Pei Undergraduate Research Grant supports an undergraduate research project related to issues of women’s empowerment such as gender equality in the workplace, access to reproductive health care, and women's political leadership. Research projects related to women in developing countries, such as micro-finance and access to education will also be considered. The $1000 grant is to be used to further research.
The grant honors the life of Linda Pei ’67 (1944-2007). Linda was born in China and grew up in Tokyo. Her parents sent her to the United States for schooling at the age of sixteen. She graduated from Brown with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, earned a master’s degree in teaching from Wesleyan University, and completed a master’s degree in business administration at Stanford University. She founded the Women’s Equity Mutual Fund in 1993 to advance the social and economic status of women in the workplace by bringing to bear the collective power of individual and institutional investors. She also founded a program to integrate entrepreneurial learning and microfinance in a small community in China.
Click here for a list of all Linda Pei Research Grant recipients
2011-12 Linda Pei Undergraduate Research Grant recipient
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Nicole Friedman, '12 "Female Health Disparities across the United States" |
Friedman’s research will focus on the lived female experience in various American cities, specifically examining aging disparities in female health across states and regions of the nation. Friedman is traveling in January 2012 from California to Rhode Island and and is collecting stories and perspectives on aging and female health in the cities she visits. Friedman will conduct interviews in each place she visits and compile these “snapshots” of American female health in a multimedia journalism blog. Follow Friedman's blog, "In Conversation: Aging Across the States" here. |
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Please submit application materials for all grants to:
The Pembroke Center
172 Meeting Street, Room 111
Box 1958
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912