Current Cohort
Current Figge Fellows
Meet the group of students participating in the Figge Fellowship through their courses of study and brief descriptions of their projects.
Annie Stegall (C’26)
- Major: English
- Project Title: Modern Christian Masculinity
- Mentor: Professor Stephen Wilson
- Project Description: This project will trace the biblical, cultural, and social roots of Christian Masculinity/Biblical patriarchy and study the way it has come to dominate American political ideology.
Bennett Hylen (SFS’28)
- Major: International Politics
- Project Title: Morality, Decolonization, and Development in Online Queer Arab Communities
- Mentor: Professor Jonathan Brown
- Project Description: This project will examine how religious, colonial, and development frameworks shape Arab conceptions of sexuality and collective life and how these communities negotiate vocabularies of faith, dignity, and belonging across digital and social spaces.
Carmela Cadja (SFS’28)
- Major: Science, Technology & International Affairs
- Project Title: Laïcité in Senegal: Domestic and Colonial Pressures on Political Secularism
- Mentor: Professor Johann Le Guelte
- Project Description: This project seeks to understand whether contemporary French interpretations of laïcité have influenced Senegalese Catholic institutions to adopt rhetoric that goes against Senegal’s long-standing tradition of religious accommodation.
Emma Zhu (SFS’28)
- Major: Regional and Comparative Studies
- Project Title: Between Japan and Korea: Zainichi, Civil Society, and Church Activism in Transnational Solidarities for Korean Hibakusha Recognition
- Mentor: Professor Christine Kim
- Project Description: This project explores the collaborations between Korean hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) and the grassroots Zainichi activist organizations, Japanese, and Korean church networks that supported them amid state discrimination that denied them immediate victim recognition and medical relief.
Maeve Tuohey (C’26)
- Major: Justice and Peace Studies
- Project Title: Using the Catholic Framework for an Economic Life to Analyze the 2025 I.C.E. Raids in Washington, D.C.
- Mentor: Professor Dawn Carpenter
- Project Description: This project will use the Catholic Framework for Economic Life to analyze the impacts of the ICE raids in Washington, D.C.
Rai Masoud (SFS’27)
- Major: International Economics
- Project Title: Forgotten Saints: Women in Punjabi Sufism
- Mentor: Professor Jonathan Brown
- Project Description: My project will interrogate the evolution of Sufism in the Punjab region of Pakistan and identify the overlooked role of women as Sufi mystics.
Bobby Woltjen (SFS’26)
- Major: International History
- Project Title: A Helmet and a Halo: What the Life of Fr. Mychal Judge, OFM Means for Sainthood and Sanctity in the Catholic Church
- Mentor: Professor David J. Collins, SJ
- Project Description: This project will explore the life of Father Mychal Judge, his work for the marginalized, identity, and his sacrifice in the context of sainthood.
Sophia Tremblay (C’27)
- Major: Classics and History
- Project Title: Souperism: Moral Dilemmas of Coercive Charity in Famine-Era Ireland
- Mentor: Professor Darragh Gannon
- Project Description: This project will investigate the multiple dimensions of ‘Souperism’, also known as the practice of coercive charity by some Protestant groups, during the Irish Potato Famine. In particular, my project examines the rhetoric surrounding Souperism, and how it shaped, conflicted with, and resonated within both the Protestant and Catholic consciousness.
Thomas Schmitt (C’26)
- Major: Government, Theology & Religious Studies
- Project Title: Atheist Charity and Good Works: The Theology of the Irreligious
- Mentor: Professor Paul Lincoln Heck
- Project Description: This project will examine how atheists understand what motivates their own empathy, charity, and good works, and will evaluate how religious and non-religious people can find theological common ground and create positive change together.