UCLA PROMISE ARMENIAN INSTITUTE GRANT AND FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENTS

Los Angeles, CA — The UCLA Promise Armenian Institute (PAI) announced the selection of the following individuals to receive research support during 2025-2026. PAI grants and fellowships are designed to support research across all academic fields, with an emphasis on or connection to Armenia or Armenians.

PAI POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS

Aram Ghoogasian (Ph.D., Princeton University 2025) will pursue a research project entitled, “The Printer’s Progress: Transformations in Modern Armenian Book History.”

Under the mentorship of Dr. Sebouh Aslanian, the UCLA Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History, Dr. Ghoogasian’s research will focus on studying Armenian print culture in the mid-nineteenth century. Drawing on book history scholarship and using Armenians as a case study to rethink print culture not as the mere presence of print matter but as a complex of associated practices enabled or otherwise altered by printing technology, as well as the beliefs that invested it with meaning.

Marianna Hovhannisyan (Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 2022) will pursue a research project entitled, “Double Assimilations, Empty Fields, and Orphan Objects: Armenian Archival Imaginaries.”

Under the mentorship of Dr. Anne J. Gilliland, professor in the UCLA Department of Information Studies, Dr. Hovhannisyan’s research will situate Armenian modern-era art and culture in relation to acts of epistemic violence committed through forced displacement, archival silences, and cultural appropriations.

Robert Sukiasyan (Ph.D., RA National Academy of Sciences, Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, 2019) will pursue a research project entitled, “The Armenians of Sivas: From Flourishing to Dispersion – A Socio-Political and Cultural History.”

Under the mentorship of Dr. Peter Cowe, the UCLA Nareketsi Professor of Armenian Studies, Dr. Sukiasyan’s research will present a comprehensive socio-political and cultural history of the Sivas Armenian community from the aftermath of the Young Turk Revolution to the 1960s. Exploring the community’s vibrant pre-genocide life, its systematic dismantling through violence, deportations, and policies of ethnic homogenization, and the long-term consequences of these events.

AGRP POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS

Gevorg Vardanyan (Ph.D., North Carolina State University, 2023) will pursue a research project entitled, “Remembering Genocide: Ottoman State Violence and Armenian-Americans, 1890s –1965.”

Under the mentorship of Dr. Taner Akçam, Director of the Armenian Genocide Research Program of the PAI, Dr. Vardanyan’s research will focus on how Armenian-Americans remembered the late Ottoman state violence from the 1890s to 1965 in their public life, going beyond a survivor-centric understanding of genocide memory by recognizing and examining the contributions of communal elites and institutions in the memory process, while also situating genocide memory within the dynamics of American culture.

POST-CANDIDACY PH.D. FELLOWSHIPS

Natalie Kamajian (Doctoral student, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance) will pursue her doctoral research entitled, “Dancing on the Border of Whiteness: Armenian-American Choreographies of Racial Identity in the Diaspora.”

Under the mentorship of her advisor, Prof. Anurima Banerji of the UCLA Department of World Arts & Cultures/Dance, Kamajian’s dissertation focuses on Armenian dance in America as a vehicle for staging racial identity.  She identifies three Armenian dance genres that negotiate whiteness in different ways across the US, employing an interdisciplinary methodology that combines history/historiography, (auto) ethnography, discourse analysis, and choreographic analysis. This project unites dance studies with Armenian, diaspora, and ethnic studies, which often overlook the role of performance in negotiating power relations.

FACULTY RESEARCH GRANTS

Sarah Abrevaya Stein (Distinguished Professor of History and Viterbi Family Chair in Mediterranean Jewish Studies, Department of History, UCLA) will pursue a PAI-funded research project entitled, “Non-Muslim Tastemakers of Islamic Art: Armenian Christian, Jewish, and Baha’i Dealers from the Middle East and North Africa and ‘Persomania’ Between the Wars.”

This research examines the role of Armenian Christian, Jewish, and Baha’i dealers from the Middle East who were crucial to the rise and flow of the global market for art and antiquities from Iran during the interwar period. These men (and some women) supported a market with imperialist roots that furthered Iranian/Pahlavi nationalist myths. This project pays heed to a wide variety of dealers, including Armenian Christians Dikran Kelekian, Krikor Minassian, and Hagop Kevorkian, Jewish dealers Ayoub Rabenou, and Baha’i dealer Rafi Y.. Mottahedeh.

PAI STUDENT TRAVEL AND RESEARCH GRANTS

Narod Arisian (Undergraduate Student, UCLA History) received a travel research grant to present her research project entitled, “Anjar’s Urban Fabric and the Stranger Within: Tracing the Evolution of Armenian Diasporic Consciousness and Transnationalism,” at the Yale Undergraduate Research Conference.

This study explores how Anjar’s urban development was instrumental in influencing Musa Dagh Armenians’ ability to preserve their cultural heritage, adapt to socio-economic realities, and maintain political resilience through the end of the Lebanese Civil War.

Sofia Gevorgian (Undergraduate Student, UCLA Political Science/Middle Eastern Studies) received a travel research grant to pursue a research project entitled, “Repatriates and Social Cohesion: The Case of Returning to–and Staying in—Armenia.”

This study will analyze Western-Armenian-speaking repatriates’ social cohesion and integration in Armenia. Applying Oral History, Linguistic Anthropology, and Transnational Identity Theory, this research will explore how dialect variation creates structural and ideological barriers in government, education, and society.

Christine Mavilian (Medical Student, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine) received a travel research grant to pursue a research project entitled, “Familial Psychosocial Impact of Cochlear Implantation in Armenia.”

This study will analyze how social determinants of health impact access to essential support for the families of the children and young adults who have received cochlear implants through the Armenian International Medical Fund (AIM Fund) and identify barriers and facilitators to early pediatric cochlear implantation and explore changes in familial dynamics post-implantation.

Lori Der Sahakian (Doctoral Student, UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology) received a travel research grant to pursue a research project entitled, “The Marketing of Identity in 1960s and ‘70s Armenian-American Popular Music.”

This study will examine Armenian-American popular music from the 1960s and ‘70s in relation to the issues of racialization and the construction of ethnic identity in the music market.