Graduate students in a range of disciplines completed international fieldwork last summer with the support of research travel grants from the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. Applications are open until March 7 for graduate students seeking support for summer 2025. 

For Alonso Alegre-Bravo, PhD candidate in biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, working in the field is a critical part of his research. Over the past two summers, he has studied electricity access in Guatemala with the support of an Einaudi travel grant and a summer research grant from the Einaudi Center’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program.

“The opportunity to go to Guatemala and talk with the communities I was studying really opened my eyes to understand different problems that are sometimes not addressed in papers in my field,” Alegre-Bravo said. 

Credit: Provided/Alonso Alegre-Bravo

He split his time between rural and urban areas and spoke with policymakers, community members, private companies and scholars to understand the realities of electricity access. Although more than 95% of Guatemala’s population has electricity, he found that very few people had reliable service. 

The economic effects are immense – and something that Alegre-Bravo hopes to keep studying. Households often paid more than 30% of their income on electricity with additional expenses for things like generators, candles and replacing spoiled food. 

“Field research sometimes is intimidating,” Alegre-Bravo said. “It’s a lot of planning and logistics. I learned a lot in terms of managing a big project. Field research provides a deeper understanding of these communities.” 

Jessie Taieun Yoon, PhD candidate in performing and media arts in the College of Arts and Sciences, also used a research travel grant to make progress on dissertation work. 

“I felt that my research project on queer Asianness had a disproportionate focus on Europe and the US,” they said. “To fully account for the making of Asianness in a transnational scope, I wanted to include more art and theory from Asian countries.” 

Yoon’s research trip included meetings with curators and artists, visits to museums and travel to Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

Credit: Provided/Jessie Taieun Yoon

In Hong Kong, Yoon explored the Asia Art Archive – the largest art archive in Asia – and its collection of exhibition catalogues, artists’ notes, theoretical and art historical manuscripts and independent zines.

“In ways that were both planned and delightfully unexpected, the archival materials, librarians and curators I met helped me deepen my understanding of the artworks I research, as well as introduced me to a broad range of new performance and media artifacts,” said Yoon. 

“Explaining my research to art practitioners, activists and curators helped me elaborate the most rudimentary pillars of my doctoral research – what the scope, scale and ambition of this doctoral research are.”

Last year 100 graduate students found support for their fieldwork at Einaudi. Apply for research travel grants by Mar. 7, and discover the range of opportunities for grad students at the Einaudi Center.

Megan DeMint is new media manager for Global Cornell.