Fondren Fellows Summer 2026
Emma Belnap
Project: Paper Trails: Evaluating a Collection of Museum Exhibition Publications
Bio: Emma is a rising third year in the Rice Art History PhD program specializing in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European art. Her research specifically focuses on the long eighteenth- century Atlantic World and how ideas about slavery and race presented in artworks were transmitted through transatlantic networks, influencing slave systems and conceptions of race in France and its colonies. Beyond her academic pursuits, Emma also enjoys reading, running, exploring new places with her film camera, and going to museums.
Mentors: K.Sarah Ostrach and Jeanette Sewell
Chelsea Burnett
Project: roadsTaken: Part II
Bio: Chelsea Burnett is an English major with minors in Creative Writing; and Politics, Law, and Social Thought. Searching through the archives is one of her favorite parts of working as a researcher. Outside of school, she enjoys relaxing at home by watching movies and listening to music.
Mentor: Matt Drwenski
Aaryn Ijames
Project: Reimagining Fondren: A Charrette Study to Redesign Fondren’s North Reading Room to Align with Student Needs
Bio: My name is Aaryn Ijames I am a graduate architecture student here at Rice pursuing my Master of Architecture after earning my undergraduate degree from Howard University. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, my work is grounded in community-centered design, equitable urban development, and the creation of public spaces that foster gathering, care, and belonging. With a background in organizational communication, I bring a strong interest in storytelling, social relationships, and cultural context to my architectural thinking. My academic projects often explore how architecture can respond to histories of inequality, strengthen neighborhood identity, and create meaningful connections between people and place. Through my design work, research, and leadership interests, I am committed to developing architecture that is thoughtful, socially engaged, and responsive to the communities it serves.
Mentor: Susan Garrison
Abhirami Kathirvel
Project: Directories to Data: Automated Extraction of Houston City Directory Records
Bio: Abhirami Kathirvel is a graduate student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice, specializing in AI and machine learning. Her background spans NLP, deep learning, and LLM-based systems, with research published across multiple international venues. This project brings her technical interests into an unexpected place — recovering the stories of Houston residents from 125-year-old city directories and making that history searchable for the researchers and students who need it most.
Mentors: Sean Smith and Norie Guthrie
Aisha Khemani
Project: Fondren on Demand: Creating Instructional Video Tutorials
Bio: Hi! My name is Aisha Khemani, and I'm a rising senior from McMurtry College majoring in Political Science and Cognitive Sciences on the pre-law track. I'm originally from the U.S. Virgin Islands and am especially interested in the intersections between policy and cognition, including how people think, make decisions, and respond to political and legal institutions.
I'm excited to be part of Fondren on Demand because I want to help make the research process less intimidating for students. I know that getting started with research can be confusing, so I hope to create videos that break things down in a simple, approachable way and help students feel more confident finding and using resources.
Mentors: Abby Stovall
Youngrae Kim
Project: Directories to Data: Automated Extraction of Houston City Directory Records
Bio: I am rising sophomore at Wiess College studying computer science. I am interested in machine learning, natural language processing, and software engineering. Besides academics, I enjoy swimming and watching movies.
Mentors: Sean Smith and Norie Guthrie
Israel Lerma
Project: Fondren on Demand: Creating Instructional Video Tutorials
Bio: Hello All! My name is Israel Lerma and I am a sophomore from Will Rice, studying Psychology and Cognitive Sciences. I am very interested in helping people in any sort of way, and always happy to assist anyone no matter when or where. Videography is a grand passion of mine, and with this project I hope to explore my creativity while also providing a simple guide for future Fondren Visitors. Besides academics, music is a big passion of mine with my favorite genre being hip-hop and jazz, as well as basketball, soccer, and really just exploring the world beauty and through conversation.
Mentors: Abby Stovall
Thais Olmos Steler
Project: Paper Trails: Evaluating a Collection of Museum Exhibition Publications
Bio: Thais Olmos Steler is a PhD student in Art History at Rice University, where her research examines how US institutions collected Latin American art and in doing so shaped the modernist canon. Working primarily through the MoMA Archives and the Rockefeller Archive Center, she traces the circuits through which Latin American art entered North American collections, investigating what was acquired, what was excluded, and the political and economic forces driving both.
Her formation moves between the university and museums. Before returning to academia, she spent years working inside art institutions; as Public Programs Coordinator at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), where she built the Art History School curriculum from the ground up, led the inaugural PIMASP cohort for the formation of artists and curators, and co-organized the international seminar Playgrounds. Earlier, at Tate Modern, she co-produced major international conferences on postcolonialism and photography. She has also worked as a mediator in major exhibitions, including the São Paulo Biennial, and held internships at Museo Reina SoUa and the Blinken Open Society Archives in Budapest.
She holds an MA in Contemporary Art History and Visual Culture from Museo Reina Sofia and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and an Erasmus Mundus MA in History in the Public Sphere completed across Central European University, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and the University of Florence. Her research has been supported by fellowships at the Bard Graduate Center and the London Critical Theory Summer School at Birkbeck. She works in Portuguese, Spanish, and English.
Mentors: K.Sarah Ostrach and Jeanette Sewell
Winter Pagona
Project: roadsTaken: Part II
Bio: Winter Pagona is a student of the School of Humanities at Rice University, studying for a History major and minoring in Religious Studies. She is a Junior and a member of McMurtry College. Her project involved creating a Geospatial map of the construction of Houston's highways, asking who was displaced and how historical construction affects the city of Houston. She also enjoys fiber arts and reading fantasy books.
Mentor: Matt Drwenski
Frederic Zhang
Project: Teaching Critical Generative AI Evaluation: Developing and Testing an Innovative Framework
Mentor: Eileen Han