This event is organized to demystify the process of securing research funds for qualitative and ethnographic projects for early-career scholars. What kinds of resources are available for these types of research, and what are some best practices for crafting proposals? This panel will bring together recent awardees of three different types of grants/fellowships — the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) — for a conversation about their experiences preparing applications. Panelists will provide advice on different types of funding mechanisms, how to pitch qualitative and ethnographic projects, and tips for writing a strong proposal.
This event will be moderated by Youngrim Kim (Rutgers University), a member of the DEWG steering committee.
Panelists:
Dr. Caitlin Petre is an Associate Professor of Journalism & Media Studies at Rutgers University. Her work examines the social processes, organizations, and actors behind the digital datasets and algorithms that increasingly govern the contemporary world. Petre’s book, All the News That’s Fit to Click (Princeton University Press), offers an ethnographic look at how performance analytics are transforming the work of journalism. Her scholarship has been published in journals including Social Media & Society, the International Journal of Communication, the American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, and Digital Journalism; her current research on generative AI and organized labor in media industries is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Petre has been featured or quoted in popular publications such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the American Prospect, WIRED, and the Atlantic. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
Dr. Fernanda R. Rosa is an Assistant Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Virginia Tech, a public university located on Tutelo and Monacan lands. Her current work focuses on Internet governance and design from a decolonial perspective, social justice, and Global South perspective. In her second and current book project, she proposes a new method defined as code ethnography. Based on decolonial, feminist, and science and technology studies, she applies code ethnography to shed light on the inequalities embedded in the internet infrastructure and protocols that shape how our data circulates online, including the data of Indigenous peoples in Latin America. Fernanda is also the founder and facilitator of the Abya Yala Pluriversity, an initiative to ignite anticolonial science and technology initiatives comprised of a network of universities in Abya Yala (the Americas), including indigenous universities. Fernanda’s work has been supported by organizations such as the National Endowments for the Humanities (NEH), with the Program on the Dangers and Opportunities of Technology (2023-2025) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), where she is a recipient of the Just Tech Fellowship (2023-2025). Her work is published in English, Portuguese and Spanish.
Dr. Yonaira “Yoni” M. Rivera (pronouns: she, her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Rutgers University’s School of Communication & Information. Originally from Puerto Rico, Rivera’s scholarship focuses on reducing health inequities and improving the well-being of Latinx communities through health communication initiatives. Her work uses qualitatively-driven mixed methods and community-based participatory research to study social media health misinformation, cancer control and prevention, and disaster relief. She specifically focuses on working with communities to develop culturally-tailored cancer educational materials for Latino/a/x audiences, understanding how engagement with health (mis)information on social media can impact health decisions, and outlining the role social media in health communication and community mobilization. Rivera has a Ph.D. in Social & Behavioral Sciences from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and an MPH in Behavioral Sciences & Health Education from Emory University. She will be sharing her experiences with getting internal and NIH grants, both at the predoctoral and postdoctoral levels.