History faculty member and graduate students named 2026-27 HRI Fellows

Heather Gernenz
February 27, 2026
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Headshots of Cheryl, Owen, and Jacki.
Cheryl Trauscht (left), Owen MacDonald (middle), Jacki Rand, (left)

Professor Jacki Rand and graduate students Owen MacDonald and Cheryl Trauscht were three of fourteen faculty members and graduate students to receive a 2026-27 Humanities Research Institute fellowship. This year's theme was "Up Against Erasure."

Faculty fellows are provided with one semester of release time and research funds. Graduate student fellows are given a stipend and a tuition and partial fee waiver for the academic year of the award.

Rand, a professor of history and American Indian studies was awarded a faculty fellowship for her project “Tribal Self-Determination, Economic Development, and the Status of Native Women in the Jim Crow South”; MacDonald received a graduate student fellowship for his project “Caribbean Amazônia: The Madeira-Mamoré Railroad, Labor, and the Making of Race, Gender, and Empire in Northwestern Brazil, 1870–1942"; and Trauscht received a graduate student fellowship for her project “Ubiquitous Stuff, Invisible People: Making Barrels, Knowledge, and Stories in the British Atlantic, 1620 to 1783.”