The APSA Diversity Fellowship Program, formerly the Minority Fellowship Program, was established in 1969 as a fellowship competition to diversify the political science profession. DFP provides support to students from underrepresented backgrounds applying to, or in the early stages of, a PhD program in political science. The goal of the program is to increase the number of scholars from minoritized backgrounds in the discipline and ultimately the professoriate. APSA has once again awarded a new cycle to provide support for PhD students currently in their first or second year as of Spring 2022. Please join us in congratulating the 2022-2023 class of fellows!
Kristen Gary is a second-year doctoral student at the University of Florida in the department of political science studying American politics and political theory. Her research interests include rural political activism and black feminist thought. She is interested in the role of black institutions in the Mississippi Delta and their impact on “staying politics” which is how black Deltans leverage resources during periods of mass migration. She further analyzes what resistance looks like in a rural southern context and how communities explain and understand their political environment. Her reason for selecting this topic stems from her own family’s migration from the Mississippi and Arkansas Deltas to Chicago and rural black political mobilization being an understudied topic in the discipline. Before attending the University of Florida, Kristen completed her Bachelor’s in political science at Philander Smith College and her Master’s in public administration at Florida A&M University.
Congratulations!
Kristen is a hard working, dedicated, and BRILLIANT scholar– her focus and inquisitive nature creates scholarly research relevant to well being of her people.
One more very important thing worth saying– without a doubt, the work Kristen does makes both her ancestors and her community on Earth proud of her.