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Helen Terry MacLeod Research Grant

Funding Opportunities

The MacLeod grant supports undergraduate honors research on issues having to do with women, gender, and/or sexuality, 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.

For application due date, see here. 

Application materials should include:

  • a three to five page description of your honors thesis
  • a letter of support from your thesis advisor
  • a brief description of how you would use the grant funds, if awarded

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.

2024-25 Recipients

  • Rachel Kamphaus ’25, English, Classics
    “All About Me: Re-Writing the Subject in the Feminist Poet’s Kunstlerroman”
  • RL Wheeler ’25, Ethnic Studies, Literary Arts

Past Recipients

  • 2023-24: Alexandra L. Lehman, Gender and Sexuality Studies, International and Public Affairs
    “Imagined Bodies in Imagined Communities: (Re)Producing the Nation in Bosnia and Herzegovina”
  • 2022-23: Leona Hariharan, Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, Neuroscience
    “Embodied Imaginations: Performance, Care, and Healing Justice”
  • 2021-22: Emma Blake, International Relations
    “Gender-based Violence and State-Sponsored Aggression: An Analysis of the Relationship Between Intimate Partner Violence and State Militarization”
  • 2020-21: Sabrina Bajwa, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Hispanic Studies 
    “Reproductive (In)justice in Detention”
  • 2019-20: Camila Pelsinger, International Relations
    “Restorative responses to gender-based violence in the United States & New Zealand”
  • 2018-19: Marielle E. Burt, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Literary Arts
    “Directing Towards Social Dialogue”
  • 2017-18: Brigitte Dale, History
    “Radical Actors: The WSPU’s Staging of the Suffrage Campaign”
  • 2016-17: Vi L. Mai, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, International Relations
     “Contesting HIV/AIDS in Cuba: The Stories Behind the Headlines”
  • 2015-16: Christin Aucapino, Public Health
    “Challenges on The Front Line: HIV Services Provided in Havana, Cuba”
  • 2014-15: Patricia Ekpo, American Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies
    “Everyday Utopia in Virtual Spaces: Tumblr, Depression, and Queer Futurity”
  • 2013-14: Lindsay Sovern, History, Gender and Sexuality Studies
    “Gorbachev and Yeltsin's Masculine Rivalry”
  • 2012-13: Catharine Savage, History, Gender and Sexuality Studies
    “The Personal is Academic: Women's Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University”
  • 2011-12 Co-recipients
    • Ann Crawford-Roberts, Anthropology
      “Conceptualization of stigma associated with HIV/AIDS in Botswana”
    • Emily Mepham, Gender and Sexuality Studies
      “Working Mothers: Challenges and Barriers in the Perinatal Period”
  • 2010-11: Taylor Lane, Comparative Literature
    “Enterprise and Habit, or, How to Talk to Your Neighbor: Alcoholics Anonymous as a Social Model”
  • 2009-10: Joy Neumeyer, History
    “Public Discourse, Private Lives: Love, Sex, and Family in Late Soviet Russia”
  • 2008-09: Karen Dannemiller, Engineering
    “Household formaldehyde detection device”
  • 2007-08: Elisabeth A. Stelson, Education
    “Saving Women from Suffrage: Women Antisuffragists in Illinois, 1897-1913”

From 1995-2007 the Pembroke Center awarded this prize 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. In 2007, this award was changed from a prize for a completed honors thesis to a research grant available to support undergraduate honors research.

Past Prize Recipients

  • 2007-08: Victoria L. Fortuna, Comparative Literature 
    “Unmaking Materiality: The Politics of Representation in Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’”
  • 2006-07: Jennifer Michelle Keighley, Political Science and Public Policy
    “The Gubernatorial Role Model Effect: Do Female Political Chief Executives Improve Women’s Rates of Political Representation?”
  • 2005-06: Sushil Chacko N. Jacob, International Relations
    “The Peaks of Power: Women and Development in Himachal Pradesh, India”
  • 2004-05: Tara Kolar Ramchandani, International Relations
    “The Link Between Microfinance and Gender Development Theory: The Bolivian Cases of BancoSol and ProMujer”
  • 2003-04:
    • Sarah L. Mehta, Development Studies
      “The Problematic Citizen: India’s Muslim Women and the Discord Between Rights and Culture”
    • Sarah Talbot Staley, Public Policy
      “Breaking the Glass Ceiling and Controlling the Floor: The Role of Women Representatives in the United States Senate”
  • 2002-03: Bonnell Graedon, Religious Studies
    “Guard the Mouth: Fasting and Silence in Early Christianity”
  • 2001-02: Jennifer Marie Cartwright
    “Credit Program Participation and Women’s Empowerment in Bangladesh”
  • 2000-01: Rose Sarita Shuman, International Relations 
    “Sexual and Gender-Based Violence: The Invisible Epidemic Ugandan Refugee Settlements”
  • 1999-2000: Lindsay Edwards Kelley, Art Semiotics
    “The Spiritual Reading: Mysticism in the Twentieth Century”
  • 1998-99: Rebecca Schulman, Political Science
    “Women in European Politics: What European Democracies Can Teach the United States”
  • 1997-98: Dana Edell, Classics
    “Maenadic Experience: Euripides' Bacche and Beyond”
  • 1996-97: Emma Wasserman, Religious Studies 
    “Death in Classical Athens: An Interpretation of Women, Gender, and Power Relationships in the Greek Funeral”
  • 1995-96: Yael K Kropsky, Comparative Literature
    “Unavowed Confessions Voided Avowels: Excerpts from Claude Cahun's Aveux non Avenus”
  • 1994-95: Karina Palmira Lago, Portuguese & Brazilian Studies
    “To Punish or Not to Punish: Domestic Violence and the Criminal Justice System in Brazil”