Williams and Desta received the 2023 Departmental Research Assistant Award from the Office of Undergraduate Research Fellowships
Angelica Williams (’23), an English-major alumna, from Capital Heights, Maryland, and Maron Desta, a fourth-year biochemistry & cellular and molecular biology major and minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, from Memphis, Tennessee, worked with DeLisa Hawkes and Danielle Procope Bell, respectively, in the department. While Williams worked on research in Africana studies’ archives, Desta assisted Procope Bell with her research on Black women in the latter-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, both having received funding from the department to support their research projects. Williams and Desta presented at the April 2023 Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement (EUReCA). Williams also received awards recognition for her research and presentation. Another Africana studies faculty member, Shaneda Destine, mentored a sociology student, Inshira Bediako, whose project on reproductive justice in Knoxville’s Black community, also won awards recognition at EUReCA.
