Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowships

The Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship funds Harvard doctoral students in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and MIT doctoral students in the social sciences who plan to spend six to twelve months in Europe conducting dissertation research. The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) considers applications by doctoral students in law, design, government, and education in exceptional circumstances, and proposals must have the support of a CES-affiliated faculty member.

Kelly Brignac (Ph.D. '21) received a Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship in 2018-2019.

How to Apply

Applications for the 2023-2024 academic year have now closed.

Questions? Contact Laura Falloon, CES Program Coordinator

Application Overview

Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship funds Harvard doctoral students in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and MIT doctoral students in the social sciences who plan to spend significant time in Europe conducting dissertation research (no less than five months for a half-year Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship and no less than nine months for a full Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship). CES considers applications by doctoral students in law, design, government, and education in exceptional circumstances, and these proposals must have the support of a CES-affiliated faculty member.
The fellowship supports dissertation topics that focus on political, historical, economic, social, cultural, and intellectual trends, or public policy issues in modern or contemporary Europe (roughly 1750–present).
Eligible applicants must have completed two years of graduate school and have passed their general examinations. There are no specific requirements for the stage of their research.
The Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship also covers the Harvard Active File Fee (AFF) and the Harvard University Student Health Insurance Program (SHIP). MIT students will be issued the equivalent funds and may apply them to their institutional fees and health insurance.

Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship Recipients (2013-2021)

2021 Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship Recipients

Twelve graduate students from Harvard and MIT were the recipients of Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship from CES for the 2021-2022 academic year. For a listing of the recipients see here.
2020 Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship Recipients

Thirteen graduate students from Harvard and MIT were the recipients of Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship from CES for the 2020-2021 academic year. For a listing of the recipients see here.
2019 Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship Recipients
Thirteen graduate students from Harvard and MIT were the recipients of Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship from CES for the 2019-2020 academic year. Unless otherwise noted all graduate students are enrolled at Harvard University.
- Francesca Bellei (Comparative Literature) – "Europe's South: Cultural Hegemony and Appropriation of the Past"
- Siyu Cai (Comparative Literature) – "Music and Exile in Twentieth-Century German, Italian, and Polish Literature"
- Hannah Cohen (Visual and Environmental Studies) – "On the Question of Aesthetic Authorship, 1971 – Present"
- Rachelle Grossman (Comparative Literature) – "Communism and Continuity: Yiddish Writing in Postwar Poland"
- Hanno Hilbig (Government) – "Fiscal Decentralization, Local Governance, and Voting Behavior"
- Emily Kanner (Slavic Languages & Literatures) – "The Magic Lantern in Russian Literature and Culture"
- Aden Knaap (History) – "Judging the World: International Courts and the Origins of Global Governance, 1899-1945"
- Lorenzo McClellan (History) – "The Secularization of Pleasure and Pain: The Emergence of Utilitarianism"
- Mina Mitreva (History) – "The Radical Left in Germany and Austria, 1918-1938"
- Bo Yun Park (Sociology) – "The Changing Scripts of Political Leadership, 1933-2019"
- Briitta van Staalduinen (Government) – "Ethnicity and Social Mobility in the Welfare States of Europe"
- Christopher Williams-Wynn (History of Art and Architecture) – "Critical Systems: Conceptual Art in a Global Information Age, 1968-1980"
- Madeleine Wolf (Romance Languages & Literature) – "The Noise of the Text: Dissonance and Disruption in Nineteenth-Century French Literature"
2018 Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship Recipients
Thirteen graduate students from Harvard and MIT were the recipients of Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship from CES for the 2018-2019 academic year. Unless otherwise noted all graduate students are enrolled at Harvard University.
- Aleksandr Bierig (Architecture, Landscape & Urban Planning) – “The Ashes of the City: Energy, Economy, and the London Coal Exchange”
- Maxim Botstein (History) – “Schools of Democracy: The Transformation of the University in West Germany 1945-1968”
- Kelly Brignac (History) – “African Indentured Labor and Slavery in the French Empire, 1822 to 1861”
- Duygu Demir (History, Theory, and Criticism of Art and Architecture, MIT) – “A Syncretic Modernism: Articulations of Painting in Turkey 1933-1964”
- Igor Ekstajn (Architecture, Landscape & Urban Planning) – “Nature and Planning in the European Southeast, 1850 – 1970”
- Hayley Fenn (Music) – “Breath, Gravity, Giants, and Death: Towards a Theory of Puppetry and Music”
- Sarah Grandin (History of Art & Architecture) – “To Scale: Manufacturing Grandeur in The Age of Louis XIV”
- Aleksandra Kudryashova (Germanic Languages & Literatures) – “Politics of the Reel: Urban Imagination and Production of Public Space in East and West Berlin”
- Boram Lee (Government) – “The Political Logic of Strange Coalitions: Origins of Post Materialist Issue Linkages in Trade Agreements in America and Europe”
- Brendan McElroy (Government) – “Peasants and Parliaments: Agrarian Reform in Eighteenth Century Europe”
- Andreja Siliunas (Social Policy) – “Post-Soviet Graffiti Wars: Decisions to Produce, Commission, Deter, and Remove Graffiti in Urban Lithuania”
- Rixt Woudstra (History, Theory and Criticism of Art and Architecture, MIT) – “Housing a Continent: Modern Architecture, Welfare and Segregation in British Africa (1945-1960s)”
- Armanc Yildiz (Anthropology) – “Producing Sexuality, Race, and Value through Refugee Integration in Germany”
2017 Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship Recipients
Thirteen graduate students from Harvard and MIT were the recipients of Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship from CES for the 2017-2018 academic year. Unless otherwise noted all graduate students are enrolled at Harvard University.
- Stefan Beljean (Sociology) – “Growing Up Neoliberal. Students Experiences at Upper-Middle-Class Schools in the United States and Germany”
- Olivia Bergman (Political Science, MIT) – “Feeling Taxed? How Policy Design Influences Perceptions of the Costs and Benefits of Governance”
- Colleen Driscoll (Government) – “Rethinking Regionalism: The Role of Party Actors in the Nationalization of Politics”
- Nina Gheihman (Sociology) – “Veganism in Vogue? Cultural Intermediaries and National Context in France, the United States, and Israel”
- Matthew Gin (Architecture, Landscape, and Urban Planning) – “Architecture feinte and the Art of Artifice in Eighteenth-Century France”
- Gili Kliger (History) – “The Human Sciences and the Ethnographic Turn, 1895-1949 “
- Gabriel Koehler-Derrick (Government) – “Rifle and Plow: Colonial Legacies of State Building in North Africa”
- Ian Kumekawa (History) – “World War I, The Economist, and the Modern Economy in Britain and its Empire”
- Rachel Thompson (Anthropology) – “Wresting Land from Sea: the Export of Dutch Hydro-Expertise to Indonesia”
- David Sadighian (History of Art and Architecture) – “Global Paris: Beaux-Arts Design and Liberal Internationalism between France and the Pan-American World, 1867-1932”
- Kylie Sago (Romance Languages and Literatures) – “The Empire of Disgust: France's Colonies in the 18th and 19th Centuries”
- Etien Santiago (Architecture, Landscape, and Urban Planning) – “Dreams and Nightmares of Rational Building: The Great War, Construction, and Architecture 1914-1940”
- Matthew Sohm (History) – “Energy, economic development, and European business, 1956-1983”
2016 Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship Recipients
Eleven graduate students from Harvard and MIT were the recipients of Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship from CES for the 2016-2017 academic year. Unless otherwise noted all graduate students are enrolled at Harvard University.
- Joseph la Hausse de Lalouviere (History) – "The Restoration of French Colonial Slavery, 1802-1848"
- Dominika Kruszewska (Government) – "From the Streets to the Party Lists: Electoral Fortunes of Social Movements"
- Andreas Wiedemann (Political Science, MIT) – "Borrowed Dreams: How Household Debt Drives the Knowledge Economy and Influences Politics"
- Paul Schmelzing (History) – "The Global Genoa System, 1929-1969"
- Elissa Berwick (Political Science, MIT) – "Productive Parochialism: Regionalist Parties and Social Spending"
- Kathryn Heintzman (History of Science) – "Materia Medica Veterinaria: France's Administration of Human-Animal Interdependence"
- Raphael Koenig (Comparative Literature) – "The Reception of the 'Art of the Insane' in France and Germany from Prinzhorn to Dubuffet"
- Yukako Otori (History) – "Child Labor and Progressive Politics, 1914-1948"
- Argyro Nicolaou (Comparative Literature) – "Europe and the Cultural Politics of Mediterranean Migration"
- Elizabeth Dekeyser (Political Science, MIT) – "An Antidote to Extremism? Mosques and Civic Integration in France"
- Annikki Herranen-Tabibi (Anthropology) – "Care, Belonging, and Social Reproduction in the Teno/Deatnu River Valley"
2015 Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship Recipients
Fifteen graduate students from Harvard and MIT were the recipients of Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship from CES for the 2015-2016 academic year. Unless otherwise noted all graduate students are enrolled at Harvard University.
- Brandon Bloch (History) – “Fractured Faith: Protestantism, Moral Conflict, and the Nation in Postwar West Germany”
- Tomasz Blusiewicz (History) – “Stalin's Gamble that Failed: How Moving Poland West Led to the Collapse of the Soviet Bloc”
- Charles Clavey (History) – “The Promise of Phenomenology: Philosophy, Politics & Ethics in the School of Milan, 1920-1980”
- Simon Crowford (History) – “Unraveling Empire: British Decolonization and the Politics of Protectorates, 1945-1965”
- Deirdre DeBruyn (Religion) – “Cultivating Religious Citizens: The Politics of Interfaith Organizations in France and the United States”
- Madeleine Dungy (History) – “Luxury in Lean Times: Visions of Global Commerce and Economic Reform in Interwar Europe”
- Joshua Ehrlich (History) – “The East India Company and the Politics of Knowledge, 1772-1835”
- Lulie El Ashry (Religion) – “Bridging Occident and Orient: Sufi Muslim Converts Renegotiating Identity in the 21st Century France and Italy”
- Louis Gerdelan (History) – “Disaster Knowledge in the Atlantic World, 1666-1800”
- Florin Morar (History of Science) – “The World Map in Sino-Western Translation”
- Tom O'Grady (Political Science, MIT) – “The Changing Relationship between Politics and the Welfare State in Europe”
- Kelly Presuti (History Theory and Criticism, MIT Architecture) – “Terroir after the Terror: Landscape and Representation in 19th-century France”
- Jessica Tollette (Sociology) – “Noticeably Invisible: A Study of Race, Policy and Immigrant Incorporation in Present-Day Spain”
- Liat Spiro (History) – “Drawing Capital: The Political Economy of Industrial Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century”
- Peter Volberding (Government) – “KfW and the Global Convergence of National Development Banks”
2014 Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship Recipients
Fifteen graduate students from Harvard and MIT were the recipients of Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship from CES for the 2014-2015 academic year. Unless otherwise noted all graduate students are enrolled at Harvard University.
- Colleen Anderson (History) – “Outer Space in Eastern and West Germany, c. 1949-1995”
- Andrew Bellisari (History) – “Colonial Remainders: France, Algeria, and the Culture of Decolonization, 1958-1970”
- Tomasz Blusiewicz (History) – “The Polish Recovered Territories: An Experimental Zone of the Socialist Experiment”
- Volha Charnysh (Government) – “Migration and Diversity: Long-Term Effects on Societal Development”
- James Conran (Political Science, MIT) – “The Comparative Political Economy of Working Time”
- Chase Foster (Government) – "Regulating Regulation: The Politics of Cost-Benefit Analysis and Public Consultation"
- John Gabriel (Music) – “Opera After Optimism: The Fate of Zeitoper at the End of the Weimar Republic”
- Sungho Kimlee (Government) – “Rousseauvian Partial Associations, James Madison, and the French Revolution”
- Arndt Luemers (Germanic Languages and Literatures) – “Resonant Narration - Alfred Döblin and the Modern Novel”
- Aline-Florence Manent (History) – “From 'Stunde Null' to 'Keine Experiment!': An Intellectual History of the FRG”
- James McSpadden (History) – “A Republic Behind the Scenes: Networks of Political Cooperation in Interwar Germany”
- Julie Miller (History) – “The Person in Common Law”
- Kirsten Wesselhoeft (Study of Religion) – “Pedagogies of Transformation: Teaching and Learning Islamic Ethics in Urban France”
2013 Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship Recipients
Thirteen graduate students from Harvard and MIT were the recipients of Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship from CES for the 2013-2014 academic year. Unless otherwise noted all graduate students are enrolled at Harvard University.
- Elizabeth Cross (History) – “The Compagnie des Indes and the Fate of Commercial Empire in the French Revolution”
- Noam Gidron (Government) – “To the Right, But in Which Direction? Toward A Contextual Theory of Partisan Change and Right-Wing Politics”
- Nicole Hirsch (Sociology) – “Doing Antiracism: Nongovernmental Organizations and Antiracist Law in France and the United States”
- Konstantin Kashin (Government) – “Sources of Business Influence in France: The Role of Business-State Networks”
- Tae-Yeoun Keum (Government) – “The Mythic Tradition in Platonism”
- Lilian Knorr (Urban Studies and Planning, MIT) – “Places of Exclusion: Youth Culture and Social Exclusion in Europe and North America”
- Caroline Laurent (Romance Languages and Literatures) – “The Words of Others: Remembering and Writing Genocide as a Non-Witness”
- Danilo Mandic (Sociology) – “The Nexus between Separatist Movements and Organized Crime: The Cases of Serbia and Georgia”
- James Martin (History) – “From the Grundnorm to the Global Economy: The Idea of Liberal World Order in European Thought 1920-1950”
- Jasmine Samara (Anthropology) – “The Politics of "Choice" in Greece: Debating Islamic law, Women's Options and European Obligations”
- Guillaume Wadia (History) – “Covert Imperial Statecraft: French Intelligence and the Growth of the Secret State in Interwar Morocco”
- Ana Weeks (Government) – “Real Change or Window Dressing? The Effect of Gender Quota Laws on Policy Outcomes”
- Olga Zhulina (Comparative Literature) – “The Modern Stage of Capitalism: Drama of Markets and Money (1870-1930)”

Fellowship Awardee Spotlights

An interview with Kelly Brignac (Ph.D. '21)

In slavery’s shadow

Sarah Palmer in Harvard Gazette on May 20, 2021

Kelly Brignac’s research explores the dark side of French colonial history. This is one in a series of profiles showcasing some of Harvard’s stellar graduates in 2021.

10 Months in Berlin

Stefan Beljean (Ph.D. '19) spent ten months in Berlin conducting fieldwork in German secondary schools as part of his dissertation research. He shared his experiences here.

Stefan Beljean (Ph.D. '19) received a Krupp Foundation Dissertation Research Fellowship in 2017.