Meet our 2024 Undergraduate Fellows!
Elizabeth Hudak
Elizabeth is a second-year pursuing majors in Politics and Philosophy & Digital Narrative and Interactive Design, as well as a certificate in Transnational Asia. She strives to integrate compassionate design and intersectionality into everything she does. Talk to her about video essays, the club squash team, or Asian-American literature.
Irene Sofía Castillo Maldonado
Irene Sofía Castillo Maldonado is a Puerto Rican junior at the University of Pittsburgh, majoring in History of Art and Architecture, Museum Studies, and Latin American Studies. She’s interested in looking at colonial systems in the United States of America, and seeing how they affect her home of Puerto Rico, specifically through the Visual and Performing Arts. She hopes to make her research as accessible to everyone, no matter the academic background. Outside the classroom, Irene has taken on the mission of tasting every coffee brand in Pittsburgh.
Jiri Palayekar
Jiri Palayekar is a double major in Psychology and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. They are interested in topics concerning the intersectionality of identity, the impact of design on digital narratives and interaction, and the impact of street art and graffiti on urban community development and identity. They work as an illustrator and as a barista between classes. Beyond that, they like to watch sitcoms or hang out at the library.
Hiba Siddiqui
Hiba Siddiqui is a junior at the University of Pittsburgh majoring in Psychology, minoring in Hindi, and obtaining certificates in Human Rights and Social Justice and Asian Studies. She is interested in developing critical alternative approaches to mainstream clinical psychology, including expanding cultural competency in therapy, with a special interest in addressing the experiences of South Asian and Queer communities. Perhaps more ambitiously, she is interested in exploring liberatory therapeutic approaches which address the role that oppression plays in distress.
Silas Maxwell Switzer
Silas Maxwell Switzer is a queer scholar and poet currently pursuing a History major and Hungarian minor. In February of 2023, he published his docupoetry chapbook, Nine Parts Water, One Part Bleach, chronicling the local history of the AIDS crisis in Pittsburgh. His academic passions are local queer history, empire and nation-state theory, and archival studies. Silas has an essay forthcoming in the journal, Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture, in which he analyzes queer worldbuilding in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. When he isn’t buried in the archives or writing poetry, Silas enjoys contemplating the mysteries of American urban fauna, particularly the noble possum.
Liam Tinker
Liam Tinker is an undergraduate student majoring in English literature, philosophy, and mathematics. He is currently considering pursuing a graduate degree in medieval studies, and his interests within the field range from Middle English poetry to classical Islamic philosophy. He also loves reading and learning more about science fiction; in the spring of 2023 he had the pleasure of visiting the Ursula K. Le Guin papers at the University of Oregon to research Le Guin’s (ambiguously) utopian novel, The Dispossessed. When not in class, you can usually find Liam at WPTS Radio, where he fills the role of News Director.
See past fellows: