2025-2026 PRAx Student Fellows
Available to undergraduate and graduate students at Oregon State University, PRAx Student Fellowships support creative interdisciplinary work at the intersection of two or more ways of looking at the world. Working with mentors from each area of study or practice, 2025-2026 fellows develop projects in one of four tracks: Art+Science, Humanities+Science, Film+Science and Engineering+Art. Projects created during the fellowship are exhibited and presented at PRAx near the end of spring term.
This program is made possible by the generosity of our campus and community partners.
If you would like to become a sponsor, contact [email protected].
2025-5026 PRAx Student Fellows
Bethany Catlin-Johnson is a fiction MFA candidate from south central Indiana and, more recently, the Twin Cities. She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Macalester College, and her 2021 poetry collection Theme & Variations: Poems in Four Movements explores the experience of growing up in a place and leaving it. Her fellowship project uses fiction to explore wildfire–a key element shaping the landscapes and sensibilities of her new home.
Field: MFA student | School of Writing, Literature, and Film | College of Liberal Arts
Mentors: Dr. Meg Krawchuk and Nick Dybek
Elyssa Cook is a writer and educator from Shasta County, California—a landscape that is both rugged and deceptively fragile. Her project is a series of poems centered around the endangered Shasta crayfish, California’s last native crayfish species, and the efforts of local ecologists to prevent their extinction. These poems pull from both archival documents and fieldwork to explore place, belonging, power, relationality, and resilience.
Field: MFA student | School of Writing, Literature, and Film | College of Liberal Arts
Mentors: Dr. Stephen Atkinson and Karen Holmberg
Kenneth Glynn is a musician and ornithologist. His research focuses on ecophysiology, investigating the consequences of prolonged environmental instability on the health and migration success of shorebirds. His project combines his passion for music and science via musical compositions detailing his personal experiences as a scientist, a neurodivergent individual in STEM, and an avid bird lover. He hopes his music will be a bridge between those inside and outside the scientific community, fostering communication that challenges traditional perceptions about science and those who practice it.
Field: PhD Student | Integrative Biology | College of Science
Mentors: Dr. Benjamin Sonnenberg and Dr. Jamie Cornelius
Samantha Hubbard studies the crossroads between mathematics and art. In an exploration of the rigid world of math through the largely interpretive world of visual media, her project visually translates the hyperbolic space within non-Euclidean geometry.
Field: Undergraduate | Mathematics with a Minor in Studio Art | College of Science and College of Liberal Arts
Mentors: Dr. Ren Guo and Leah Wilson-Haley
Roshell Lamug studies light-matter interactions and intermolecular interactions in organic materials for enhancing the performance of photovoltaics. Her fellowship project investigates the field of tension between ambiguity and clarity of perception using optical materials that respond to motion, light, and time.
Field: PhD student | Physics | College of Science
Mentors: Dr. Oksana Ostroverkhova and Dr. Kevin Houser
Meghan Sharp is a geophysicist and glaciologist—she uses physics and remote sensing to understand how glaciers flow, fracture, and melt. Her project uses stained glass to showcase the dynamic processes that shape glaciers and the transformations they undergo in response to a changing climate.
Field: PhD student | Geophysics | College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Mentors: Dr. Erin Pettit and Laurel Vonderau
Hannah Steele is an artist and researcher who studies snow hydrology and water management. Using GIS, remote sensing, machine learning, and participatory methods, their work focuses on improved measurement and modeling of mountain snowpack and water availability timing in Eastern Oregon. Their fellowship project involves a textile-based exploration of the interconnected nature of community, water, and place.
Field: PhD student | Geography and Geospatial Science | College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Mentors: Dr. Mark Raleigh and Madelaine Corbin
Taylor Wood studies harmful algal blooms along the Oregon coast in partnership with local fishing communities through a co-designed cooperative observatory. Her project explores the cascading impacts of algal blooms on marine food webs and coastal communities through a series of stained-glass panels.
Field: MS student | Marine Resource Management | College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Mentors: Dr. Maria Kavanaugh, Wayne Ruby
Jiratana Tungkawachara is an interdisciplinary artist and scientist who studies hormone concentrations of blacktip reef sharks using the technique of radioimmunoassay. Her project bridges the worlds of art and science by creating works that re-imagine traditional styles and methods of scientific illustration.
Field: Undergraduate | Bioresource Research | College of Agricultural Sciences
Mentors: Dr. James Sulikowski, Christopher Marley