Antia Gonzalez Ben, Allison Perlin, Meg Healy, President Morton Gernsbacher, Ryan Prestil And Katherine Robiadek
Antía Gonzalez Ben is a second year Ph.D. student in Curriculum and Instruction, Music Education, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Antía was born and raised in Galicia, Spain, where she learned to play the violin. She earned a Bachelor’s in Music Education and a Master’s in Social Pedagogy from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Antía transferred to UW-Madison, where she earned a Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction. Thanks to the Zillman Summer Research Award, Antía will be conducting preliminary archival fieldwork in Madrid and Barcelona, Spain. She will be examining primary and secondary sources that engage with the notion of creativity in the field of education.
Meg Healy is a senior from Sonoma County, California majoring in Geography and Political Science. Her senior honors thesis investigates processes of forced eviction of favela residents in Rio de Janeiro in preparation for the 2016 Olympics. This summer she will return to Rio to continue researching the effects of mega events on municipal housing policy. Meg is very much looking forward to expanding her existing research and documenting the social and physical transformations of the city, and appreciates the support of the Zillman Summer Research Award in order to do so.
Allison Perlin is a senior from Kildeer, Illinois with a double major in Political Science and International Human Rights, and a certificate in Modern Dance. Allison has served as president of both the Wisconsin Model United Nations and the National Alliance on Mental Illness – UW Chapter. She is also the co-chair of the political science honors organization, Pi Sigma Alpha. Allison is currently finishing her senior honors dual degree thesis on the relationship between post-genocide reconstruction and trauma. With the Zillman Summer Research Award, Allison will be interning with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Office of the Prosecutor at the Hague. She is excited and thankful to have the opportunity to bring her educational passion into reality.
Ryan Prestil, from Janesville, Wisconsin, is a junior majoring in Neurobiology and Mathematics. On campus, he has been involved in research with Dr. Krishanu Saha, studying synthetic biology and stem cell bioengineering. In the summer of 2015, he will be working in the Arendt Group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. There he will be using a marine worm model of the last common ancestor of vertebrates, insects, and other bilateral animals to investigate the organization of neural cell types in the developing nervous system. With this more simple model, broad conclusions may be drawn about the development of the nervous system in humans, both evolutionarily and individually.
Katherine Robiadek is originally from Michigan and has relocated to Madison, Wisconsin to complete a doctoral degree in political theory in the Department of Political Science. Her dissertation will focus on the concept of sovereignty in early modern political thought, which is of interest today given the many challenges to political sovereignty faced by states around the world. Her summer research will involve rigorous methods training at the 2015 London Summer School in Intellectual History, where she will also present her research for feedback by experts in her discipline.
Other Zillman Award Winners:
2017, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010,
2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005