We are excited to announce the final list of Starr Foundation Student Fellows for 2016. These are students that applied to the Student Travel and Research Grants in the fall of 2015 to support academic research on India and China. The list of final Fellows is below. Congratulations to all of them!!

Bailey Baerwolf

Originally from rural Wisconsin, Bailey Baerwolf moved to New York to pursue a better understanding of how cities work. He is now a third year student at Parsons pursuing a Bachelors of Science in Urban Design with a focus on the right to the city, and furthermore, the right to produce the city. He also holds positions on campus as both a Resident Advisor at Kerrey Hall and the Social Media Designer for @TheNewSchool.

With a wide range of interests, Bailey has set forth to engage with any and all of them, knowing that all things are connected by design. His work follows an interdisciplinary, solutions-based approach, creating things with the intent to help make people’s daily lives easier.

Darcy Bender

Darcy Bender is a designer and a Masters candidate in the Design and Urban Ecologies program at Parsons. Previously, she studied architecture at University of Oregon where her thesis focused on the confluence of mapmaking and the architectural process. She has experience working in affordable housing construction, retail display, museum education and at a DIY maker space. Her current work is focused on the social and cultural dimensions of waste, housing justice, building social infrastructures, visualizing industrial ecology and creating representations of entangled urban systems.

Ye Liu

Ye Liu holds a BA in anthropology from Sun Yat-sen University, China, and M.A. in sociology from London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Also, he has some assistantship experiences from these institutes. Currently, he is studying in The New School for Social Research for MA (leading to PhD) program in sociology. His academic interest is broad but urban and spatial studies stand in center, in which he discovers questions such as how do abstract cultural, social and political mechanisms interact with material spatial settings. By adopting an interdisciplinary perspective (for instance, ethnographic, visual, geographical and architectural approaches), he tries to understand the world with better insight. Last but not the least, as an activist, Ye Liu has been involved in several collective actions around urban and spatial issues in China. Of course, he looks forward to knowing about your stories and findings as well!

Shirin Mazdeyasna

Shirin Mazdeyasna is an undergraduate junior at The New School, pursuing a dual degree in Fine Arts at Parsons and Liberal Arts at Lang. She was born and raised in Iran, and moved to the United States three years ago. Shirin is currently interested in exploring the morality of what it means to be a human: according to what standards do we make our decisions and live our daily lives ‘ethically.’ She plans to explore the philosophy of Buddhism, and its related cultural and ritual ceremonies, and in what senses they may be different from other forms of religions.

Sophie O’Neill-Latulippe

Sophie O’Neill-Latulippe is a BA student in Integrated Design at Parsons School of Design. She plans to explore sustainability and cotton as it relates to the Indian Fashion Design industry. Sophie plans to follow cotton’s route from crop to commodity, which will allow her to investigate local and regional offices of global manufacturers and how sustainability and ethical practices are represented. She plans to visit three companies in India who are committed to sustainability, specifically in regards to cotton, to understand how they have managed to operate sustainably.

Douglas de Toledo Piza

Douglas de Toledo Piza is a PhD student in Sociology at the New School for Social Research, and research assistant at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility. De Toledo Piza holds a MA degree in Sociology, and a BA in International Relations, both at the University of São Paulo. His fields of interest are Migration and Mobility, Economic Sociology, Political Economy, and Anthropology of the State. He worked as an International Relations instructor and research assistant on the Chinese-Brazilian trade, and volunteered at a Human Rights NGO. De Toledo Piza’s research interests include the Chinese migration, borderlands, special economic zones, markets, and informality. His publications include articles on journals, chapters in edited volumes, and the awarded MA thesis “A Story of Globalization as Told by 25 de Março Street: Chinese Migrants and ‘Informal’ Commerce.” Douglas de Toledo Piza’s current research focuses on the conditions for the Chinese migrants’ mobility to and from Ciudad del Este, a Paraguayan city in a tri-border area. In order to understand this issue, his doctoral research addresses the political decisions on trade deregulation in a one-of-a-kind special economic zone in Ciudad del Este, and on the politics of the Chinese migrations in China and beyond.

Liliana Gil Sousa 

Liliana Gil Sousa is a PhD student in Anthropology at The New School for Social Research. She is interested in initiatives around make-do innovation such as the Mitticool clay fridge in India. She will be spending time in Bombay, Bengaluru, and Delhi to conduct exploratory observation and interviews alongside tinkerers, activists, and entrepreneurs. Liliana has conducted similar research in Brazil during her previous summer.

Jordenn Stewart

Jordenn is a Maryland born undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in architecture at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. After graduating, he aspires to earn his M.Arch in Architecture and ultimately combine his passion for design, phenomenological experiences, ephemera, and civic engagement in his career pursuits.  He is currently working on ‘The Right to Produce the City’, an urban design focused project, which explores global power structures and their prevailing hierarchy.

Jordenn has interned with the Jacob K. Javits Center examining efficiency and sustainability in the built environment and is very passionate about democratizing the rights to both physical and intellectual property. He hopes that his trip to China this summer will provide him with insight into the simplest ways to engage an increasingly large number of people in order to reactivate a more democratized system to construct, create and design the global city’s rapid development. Outside of school, Jordenn loves to write and compose music, travel and take long walks.

Jialei Tang

Originally from the south coast of China, Jialei Tang is currently enrolled at The New School as a BAFA student of Architecture and Liberal Arts. Jialei graduated from the Integrated Programme at Nanyang Girls’ High School and Hwa Chong Junior College in Singapore, where she completed the Singapore-Cambridge GCE ‘A’ Levels.

She is drawn to the rigor of philosophy and the multivalence of languages. Jialei has diverse experiences working as a freelancer and intern in different industries, from banking to publishing. With a particular affinity for aesthetics, Jialei is very curious about curation and material experimentation. At present, Jialei is looking towards cultural and social issues shaped by architecture such as urban planning as she embarks on the focused pursuit of her undergraduate studies.

Ker Thao

Ker is an artist and designer who enjoys learning about other people and their cultures. He is currently a graduate student in the Transdisciplinary Design program at Parsons. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Graphic design. Previously, he worked with a non-profit organization, Central Rivers Farmshed, to expand the connection of local residents and their food and as a graphic designer for the Student Academic Advising Center at his university. His interests lie in finding the meaning of design, how design can be used to impact society, and sparking creativity in others. Ker aspires to change and empower the world through design.