von der Heyden Global Fellowship Announces New Cohort

The Office of Global Affairs (OGA) and the John Hope Franklin Center (JHFC) are delighted to announce the third cohort of the von der Heyden Global Fellowship (vdH Fellows). This fellowship supports current advanced Duke Ph.D. students whose dissertations are situated in international or regional studies and make an important contribution to advancing understanding of racial, social and equitable justice.

Our selection committee, led by the vdH Fellowship Program Manager Julie Maxwell, reviewed many competitive applications and has selected an outstanding group of individuals for our third cohort. For the first time in the history of the program, this cohort welcomes seven new graduate students to the program, one more than in the past two years. The OGA and JHFC offices are excited to welcome these fellows to our community and to support them in their important work.

Below are the seven selected vdH Fellows. Their term begins June 1, 2025, and concludes May 31, 2026.

Image	Joseph Hiller is a Ph.D. candidate in Cultural Anthropology with a Certificate in Feminist Studies. During dissertation fieldwork, he collaborated with the Grupo de Prisiones, a legal clinic at the Facultad de Derecho of La Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. His background is in Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies (BA, Grinnell College, 2012) and Latin American Studies (MA, Tulane University, 2018). Joseph's dissertation explores how gender, sexuality, and intimacy structure prison worlds in Colombia. Other interests include weird fiction, the páramo, and trans studies.
Image	Danny Tobin is a 4th-year PhD student at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. His research focuses on Sustainable Development, Evidence-Based Policymaking, Supply Chain Sustainability, Afforestation and Reforestation, Payment for Ecosystem Services, and Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM). Danny collaborates with multidisciplinary teams across various countries, applying quantitative methods (such as discrete choice modeling, econometric impact evaluations, and simulations) to assess the effects of interventions both prospectively and retrospectively. He also employs qualitative approaches to understand why interventions succeed or fail and how improved systems can lead to better outcomes.
Image	Yaming You is a 5th-year PhD candidate from Duke History Department. Her work focuses on the history of medicine, pharmaceuticals, and public health; environmental history; and the Communist Revolution in twentieth-century China. She is currently working on her dissertation titled “The Syringe Body: A Biography of Injection in Modern China.” Her focus on history of medicine and pharmacy rethinks historical attempts to provide equitable healthcare and pharmaceutical access to impoverished regions in Communist China from 1940s to 1970s.
Image	Alex Brandli is a 6th year PhD candidate in the History Department. He holds an MA in History from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. He works on 20th Century Mexican history with an emphasis on LGBTTTQI+ health activism and transnational networks of care. His work has been generously supported by the Fulbright Foundation and Duke’s Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies Department. He spent two years conducting research in Mexico City and volunteering for a queer, activist-run archive.
Image	Isabella Bouklas is a PhD candidate in the Sociology department at Duke. Her primary research interests involve using quantitative methods and longitudinal data to investigate the pathways by which structural racism impacts health across the life course. Some of these pathways include racial residential segregation, pollution exposure, nutrition access, and incarceration. Her dissertation research examines the joint impacts of racial residential segregation and air pollution exposure on cognitive aging. Prior to arriving at Duke, she earned her BA in sociology and psychology with minors in philosophy and gender studies from Stony Brook University.
Image	Marcelo Silva is a rising fifth-year Ph.D. candidate at the Sanford School of Public Policy. His research focuses on the political and economic drivers of policy solutions to critical 21st-century challenges, including climate change adaptation, poverty alleviation, and the sustainable use of natural resources. With nearly 15 years of professional experience, his work is informed by a multidisciplinary academic background that integrates insights from political science and economics. He holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in political science from the University of Brasília, as well as a master's in international affairs with a focus on development economics from the University of California, San Diego.
Image	Theresa Sambruno Spannhoff is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Carolina-Duke Graduate Program in German Studies, a joint doctoral program between Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Currently in the fourth year of the program, Theresa is writing the first chapter of her dissertation, tentatively titled "Refuge and its Literary Imagination in the Anthropocene." Her research focuses on contemporary German-language science fiction and ecocriticism, engaging with posthumanist discourse and its intersections with ecology, gender and sexuality studies, postcolonial studies, and refugee studies.

The creation of the von der Heyden Global Fellowship is influenced by the legacy of Dr. John Hope Franklin, acclaimed historian of African American history. Franklin was an American historian, scholar, and civil rights activist who is known for his groundbreaking research on the history of African Americans, particularly his studies of the American South and the role of slavery in American history. The vdH Fellows will hold offices in the John Hope Franklin Center, an intentional decision as this fellowship follows the example of John Hope Franklin himself. 

Incoming Fellow Marcelo Silva shared,

"I am confident that the von der Heyden Global Fellowship will provide a collaborative space to
deepen the interdisciplinary focus of my research and contribute to meaningful conversations on
global justice. Being part of a diverse cohort of scholars presents a unique opportunity to
critically engage with structural inequities and explore transformative solutions to the social and
environmental challenges of our time."

We are thrilled to welcome the incoming 2025-2026 cohort to the vdH Fellowship. We look forward to the insights and contributions they will bring to our ongoing work in global justice and equity.