The two Ph.D. students have been awarded grants through the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) program to conduct research overseas.

Nehal Amer plans to use her grant for research on the Egyptian government’s efforts to expand desert urbanization as part of its Sustainable Development Strategy: Egypt Vision 2030. Her year-long project will examine how the development agenda is shaping emergent urban geographies and planning practices in a global city. Alongside her doctoral studies, Amer is a program analyst with the Carnegie Corporation of New York where she supports the Arab region program in grantmaking.

Chinonye Otuonye focuses on cultural anthropology, specifically territorial and political struggles and the racial discourses that undergird them. She was awarded a grant to travel to Nigeria for one year to study territorial and sovereignty struggles related to the aftermath of the Biafran War. Otuonye was in the inaugural group of Mellon Humanities Public Fellows at the Graduate Center and is an assistant editor at The Republic magazine, which features political commentary and critical discourse from Nigerian and African perspectives.