Academics

Two College of Arts and Architecture graduate students awarded AAUW fellowships

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The American Association of University Women (AAUW) awarded two Penn State College of Arts and Architecture graduate students with fellowships for 2019-20.

Indira Bailey Credit: ProvidedAll Rights Reserved.

The recipients, Epiphany Loux and Indira Bailey, will pursue academic work and lead innovative community projects to help empower women. AAUW’s fellowships and grants have helped scholars and activists overcome barriers to education and advancement for 130 years.

Loux, who received the Selected Professions Fellowship, is pursuing her master of architecture with a focus on sustainability. She is a research assistant in the Hamer Center for Community Design Energy Efficient Housing Research Group (EEHR), researching sustainable communities and high-performance (low-energy) housing and related social, environmental and educational opportunities. She currently is in charge of follow-up initiatives related to the newly completed GreenBuild zero-energy duplex located on University Drive.

In spring 2020, Loux will be part of Penn State’s team for the Solar Decathlon, a competition facilitated by the Department of Energy that aims to produce high-performance, cost-effective single or multi-family homes for the community.

Bailey, who received the American Dissertation Fellowship, is pursuing her doctorate in art education and women’s, gender and sexuality studies. With her fellowship, she will continue work on her dissertation, titled “A Black Feminist Narrative of the Outsider-within Positionality of Black Women K-12 Art Educators.” Her research focuses on black women K-12 art educators’ curricular experiences within the United States, including the underrepresentation of black women artists in art education teaching resources.

“My goal is for the field of art education, pre-service art education programs, curriculum developers and administrators to create diversified teaching resources and curricula for the K-12 sector,” said Bailey, noting other academic disciplines, such as U.S. history and education, may also benefit from the research to develop curricula that challenge Eurocentric male-themed teaching resources.

Applications for the AAUW fellowship program open Aug. 1 of each year. For more information, visit www.aauw.org.

Last Updated September 3, 2020