2026 Maxine Miller Student Scholars Named

The Gender Studies Program in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is pleased to announce its second cohort of Maxine Miller Scholars. Named after luminary business owner of Maxine's Tap Room, Maxine Miller, scholars are selected based on the strength and innovation of their research projects, which must examine gender issues in a humanities field. ​

The 2026 cohort are:

Robert "Trey" Berry (Ph.D. student, history) studies ruptures in gender and sex ideology in Guaraní lexicons produced in Jesuit missions. He will use the funds to travel to southern Brazil to consult archival materials for his dissertion.

Ashlyn Fox (communication, history and gender studies minor) is examining the Arkansas Women's Center (AWC) which operated on the U of A campus from 1972 to 1980. She will use oral histories, documents and travel to regional repositories to ascertain the AWC's contributions to second wave feminism.

Apurva Grover (M.A. student, communication) will conduct qualitative interviews and employ ethnographical observation to explore the queering of the Indian workplace through an analysis of how professional LGBTQAI+ identities are constructed.

Grace Penry (M.F.A. student, creative writing and translation) will attend Bread Loaf Translators' Conference in Middlebury, Vermont, to workshop her translation of Al inferno igual by Argentine writer Ju Donzelli, whose work investigates climate change, religion and gender.

Julia Rock (Italian, English and sociology minor) will travel to the AATI Conference at the U of A Rome Center to present her research on the self-fashioning of women through the Italian authors Dante Aligheirei, Francesco Petrarca, Pietro Aretino and Vittoria Colonna.

Ellagrace Trout (painting, art history) will attend the Mount Gretna School of Art in summer 2026, conduct oral histories and archival research to further her artistic and intellectual practice of discovering the connection between gender, the body and nature.