Student Awards
2025 Sachs Program Grants
Doctoral candidates Lucila Rozas Urrunaga and Farrah Rahaman, and recent graduate Azsaneé Truss, were awarded funding for creative projects from the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation in April 2025.
They are among 20 members of the Penn community awarded grants this year. The Sachs Program supports innovative arts activities throughout the University of Pennsylvania community, providing funding to Penn faculty, staff, students, departments, programs and centers. The goal of the program is to ensure that the arts at Penn are valued and embraced as a creative catalyst, driving innovation, inspiration and action.
Urrunaga’s project, “Contra- Archivx,” is a transnational initiative that documents and amplifies the practices and narratives of trans/feminist resistance across Latin America.
Rahaman’s project titled “Palimpsest” is a short speculative film recounting the moment on the brink of deportation, in which visionary cultural organizer and writer Claudia Jones sets fire to her entire personal archive.
Truss’s project, “What World?” is a curated group exhibition at The Arts League of West Philadelphia that reveals how artists (and society) are experiencing a surreal global political moment.
Awards at NCA 2025
National Communication Association’s 110th Annual Convention November 21-24 in New Orleans, Louisiana
Doctoral student Sim Gill: Top Student Paper Award from the Economics, Communication, and Society Division
Recent graduate Azsaneé Truss (PH.D. '25): Top Student Paper Award from the Critical & Cultural Studies Division
Awards at ICA 2025
International Communication Association’s 75th Annual Conference June 12-16 in Denver, Colorado
Doctoral student Yifei Lu: Top Paper Award, Top Student Paper Award, and the John Garrison Memorial Award from the Interpersonal Communication Division.
Other Awards
- Doctoral student Thomonique Moore was named a 2024 Penn Presidential Ph.D. Fellow.
- Doctoral candidate Tom W. Etienne was awarded a UvA Alumni Impact Prize from the University of Amsterdam for his global voting advice tool.
- Doctoral student Tejas Harad received a 2025 Summer Research Funds grant from Penn’s Center for the Advanced Study of India.
- Doctoral candidate Kate Okker-Edging won the 2025 James D. Woods Award for outstanding teaching.
