Marie ‘s area of scholarship is the 20^th– century Russian painter Kazimir Malevich and the approximately 40 works included in Malevich’s 1929 Moscow exhibition. Marie is examining the images within the paintings, the political climate of Russia in 1929 and Malevich’s artistic reactions to the emerging totalitarianism in the time of Stalin.

She describes her Bryn Mawr experience as intellectually rewarding. She values the quality of her well-respected graduate program, the student-focused environment, the interdisciplinary faculty support and the opportunity to pursue her own, personally-designed path of scholarship.

Marie is one of four Bryn Mawr graduate students to receive the prestigious Mrs. Giles Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities this year. The Whiting Fellowships support students in the last stages of completing their Ph.D.s and are available only to students at the University of Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale…and Bryn Mawr. What good company!

Johanna’s area of scholarship is modern and contemporary art, with an emphasis on postwar experimental film. Johanna is writing her dissertation on artist and experimental filmmaker Bruce Conner. She presented a paper, and portion of her dissertation, Locating Marilyn: Andy Warhol, Bruce Conner and the Serial Star, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in May 2010.

Her Bryn Mawr experience has been one of immersion in the College’s deeply intellectual environment.  Indeed, Johanna has held an internship in Bryn Mawr’s Department of Special Collections, done curatorial work, worked as a teaching assistant and served as steering committee co-chair of the Graduate Group Symposium.

For Johanna, curatorial work is an important intellectual practice in the field of art history, and curatorial internships provide a solid foundation for her future career. Curatorial internships enabled Johanna to work with prominent American artist Red Grooms on an exhibition of his drawings, prints, paintings and sculptures at Bryn Mawr, and to work on Dance with Camera, an exhibition that opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.

Meet Don Fahey, Physics Ph.D. candidate

Don uses radiation pressure and the Doppler Effect to cool a gas of atoms and slow the atoms’ movement. Then, with lasers, he excites the atoms to high-energy states and observes how they interact with each other.  The applications of Don’s research are broad and include the research and development of a quantum computer and a greater understanding of low-temperature plasmas.

Don is using his Bryn Mawr experience to develop the skills to reach his goal of teaching and researching at a liberal arts college. In Bryn Mawr’s small graduate program in Physics, Don is able to build close relationships with faculty and work one-on-one with them in the lab. These experiences help him learn how to build and maintain a lab of his own, define research goals, fund a lab, write grants and direct undergraduate students in research.