Allison Grenda, a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, received the 2026 Mary Isabel Sibley Fellowship for exceptional young scholars in the field of Greek language, literature, history, or archaeology. Grenda graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles, and earned her master’s degree from the University of California, Davis. She specializes in the art, architecture, and archaeology of the Byzantine Empire, focusing on urbanism and cross-cultural exchange, and has worked on archaeological projects in Greece, North Macedonia, Italy, and California. The fellowship’s $20,000 stipend will support her dissertation, “The Art of Crisis: Urban Destruction and Renewal in Byzantine Greece, 4th–15th Centuries.”
Abby H. Shepherd, a Ph.D. candidate in Romance Studies at Duke University, is the 2026 recipient of the Walter J. Jensen Fellowship, which supports advanced study and research in French language, literature, and culture. Shepherd is also pursuing a graduate certificate in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke; she earned her bachelor of arts in French from Auburn University. Her research examines sartorial expressions of identity in literature and cinema, particularly representations of dress in 19th- and 20th-century Metropolitan France and Francophone Louisiana. As the Jensen Fellow, Shepherd will receive a $17,000 stipend and round-trip travel to France to advance her dissertation, “Seams of the South: Fashioning the Franco-Louisiana Dialogue.”
By Micayla Nadeau-Williams, Assistant Director, Development, Events, & Awards