Syracuse University initiated the Future Professors Fellowship Program in early 2021 with multiple objectives. The program seeks to increase the number of scholars from underrepresented groups entering academia after completing their doctoral studies and position them to transition to faculty positions in the future. It also aims to bolster the overall strength and size of the cohort of postdoctoral scholars at the University–an important factor in the Carnegie R1 designation for research institutions.
The program is open to talented postdoctoral scholars in any academic field, but particularly in engineering or other STEM fields. Scholars with interdisciplinary teaching and research are especially encouraged to apply. Each fellow is paired with one or more faculty mentors and provided networking opportunities in their field. The University may award up to five fellowships annually. Each fellow works on one or more independent projects, teaches one course per year in their area of expertise, and participates in the production of manuscripts and grant proposals with their mentors.
“We are pleased to add four highly qualified postdoctoral scholars over the next two academic years,” says Ramesh Raina, interim vice president for research. “We’re grateful to their faculty mentors and eager to see their contributions to scholarship and creative activity at Syracuse.”
Chaz Barracks will be a fellow in the department of communication and rhetorical studies in the College of Visual and Performing Arts in fall 2022. He will also work with the department of writing studies, rhetoric and composition in the College of Arts and Sciences and with the Lender Center for Social Justice and the Engaged Humanities Network. He will be mentored by Professor Kendall Phillips and Associate Professor Brice Nordquist. His postdoctoral project is related to engaged critical rhetoric, visual culture and public memory.
Barracks is a Black queer scholar and media artist who received a Ph.D. in philosophy, media, art and text from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2020. He is a former Consortium for Faculty Diversity Fellow at the University of Richmond in the department of rhetoric and communication studies, and scholar in residence in the University’s Bonner Center for Civic Engagement. He currently serves as a postdoctoral fellow with the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Through his work, which integrates film and media-making, Barracks will make an impact in interdisciplinary fields related to memory studies, critical race studies, African American Studies, performance and rhetoric.
Michael Dunaway is a fellow in the department of sociology in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He also works in the Center for Policy Research in the Maxwell School. He is mentored by associate professor of sociology Rebecca Schewe and is actively building collaborations with other academic units on campus. His postdoctoral project is centered on developing a research agenda focused on sustainability initiatives in Indigenous communities in New York as well as community-based participatory research on flood risk and water pollution in Central New York.
Dunaway is an indigenous scholar who earned a Ph.D. in natural resources from Cornell University in August 2020. His methodological expertise is in Indigenous community-based participatory methods designed to build strong relationships with Indigenous and marginalized communities advancing their development agendas by collaborating with academic researchers. Dunaway’s primary research focus explores Indigenous energy sovereignty and how tribes can determine which renewable energy technologies are best suited for their reservation as a means for those tribes to empower themselves.
Dorcas Idowu will join the department of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science in Jan. 2022. She will also work with the department of earth and environmental sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. She will be mentored by assistant professors Elizabeth Carter, Tao Wen and Samuel Tuttle. Her work as a fellow will include accessing and processing gridded satellite data, gridded outputs from general circulation models, ancillary/crowdsourced geospatial data, and in-situ photogrammetric survey data to develop flood disaster informatics using appropriate geographic information system software.
Idowu is a native of Nigeria who received a Ph.D. in geological engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in 2021. Her areas of expertise are geological engineering, geographical information systems and remote sensing.
David Hernández Uribe will join the department of earth and environmental sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences in Fall 2022. He will be mentored by Thonis Family Professor Suzanne Baldwin and associate professor Jay Thomas. His work as a fellow will include investigation of the petrogenesis of metamorphic rocks in the subduction complexes of Baja California, Mexico,to investigate their thermal and tectonic evolution.
Hernández Uribe is a native of Mexico who received a Ph.D. in Geology from the Colorado School of Mines in 2020 and is currently serving as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the department of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Michigan. He is already a key scientist who is working to develop a new paradigm for the formation of Earth’s crust that has wide-ranging implications for numerous geologic processes that operate on the terrestrial planets.
