Discover Rackham
Student Spotlight: Joe Cialdella
Space has a big influence on Joe Cialdella. He finds himself gravitating to work, research and opportunities to explore connections to the environment around him. Hailing from Kalamazoo, he came to Michigan as an undergraduate in the Residential College (RC). “While...
Student Spotlight: Anne Fitzpatrick
Anne attended Cornell for her undergraduate degree and fully expected to return there for graduate work after working for a few years. “Then I came to visit Michigan and knew this was the place for me. There are so many resources here, the faculty are accessible, the...
The Arts of Citizenship Institute for Social Change: Questioning Boundaries, Engaging Communities
Rackham’s Arts of Citizenship Institute for Social Change constitutes a multidisciplinary venue for exploring the conceptual and practical dimensions of public scholarship. The Institute provides socially motivated graduate students an opportunity to raise questions...
Student Spotlight: Katrina Ellis
Katrina never planned on having a career in public health. What seemed at the time to be relatively minor life choices – first to travel and immerse herself in new cultures and experiences and second to delve into research – led to what she hopes is a long and...
Student Spotlight: Lia Wolock
“This is my third U-M degree,” Lia admits. Lia grew up in Southeastern Michigan with parents who were in public service law. Her parents invested long ago in a tuition program sponsored by the State of Michigan, the Michigan Education Trust (MET), so Lia’s...
Student Spotlight: Marcus White
“I’m exploring visibility, surveillance, and invisibility. I’m asking questions about how the moving body addresses these issues.” Marcus’ research in dance focuses on how the human body brings to life themes related to issues of visibility, surveillance and...
A New Focus
The following is a transcript of a Gmail chat between Douglas, a student blogger and Ph.D. Student in Communication Studies and Natalie Bartolacci, Academic Program Officer at Rackham Graduate School. Natalie: Hi Douglas! You are in your first year as a Ph.D. student,...
Student Spotlight: Lisa Domenico
In the home stretch, Lisa is finishing the third of three papers that comprise her dissertation. Her research focuses on self-schema models (neurological networks that contain and process self-referential information) and how they serve as the unidentified mechanism...
Six Unbelievable Hacks to Survive Quals
Spoiler alert: just like in your average click-bait article, there is no real hack. One of the great joys about qualifying and preliminary exams is being done with them and being able to look back fondly on them after emerging from that dark, dark tunnel. Since I...
Student Spotlight: Jay Borchert
Jay was just awarded the prestigious Mellon American Council of Learned Societies Dissertation Fellowship, an award given to graduate students in the humanities and related social sciences in the last year of Ph.D. dissertation writing. As a 5th year doctoral...