CRRES Faculty Affiliate Dr. Vanessa Cruz Nichols was awarded a 2023-2024 Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. The fellowship is sponsored by the Ford Foundation and administered by the Fellowships Office of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. This year, the highly competitive program awarded 24 postdoctoral fellowships. The fellowship provides one year of support to individuals who have demonstrated superior academic achievement and show promise of future achievement as scholars and teachers.
During the fellowship, Dr. Cruz Nichols plans to focus on her book manuscript, Catalyzing Political Action Beyond Threats: Latinxs Rising to the Challenge with Messages of Peril and Promise. In the book, she is theorizing the double-edged sword of threatening or fear-based appeals for spurring activism among Latinxs.
Dr. Cruz Nichols earned her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Economics from DePaul University, where she was a McNair Scholar. She earned her PhD in Political Science from the University of Michigan. Her dissertation work received funding support from the Ford Foundation and National Science Foundation (2017). Dr. Cruz Nichols is especially honored to be a 3x Ford Fellow (as a Predoctoral Fellow, Dissertation Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow).
Congratulations, Dr. Cruz Nichols!