The City College Provost appoints a Director and Steering Committee to administer and set policy for the City College Fellowship and MMUF on the City College campus. The Steering Committee screens applications, interviews candidates, and names fellowship recipients for both the City College Fellowship and MMUF. Faculty Mentors are chosen by Fellows. Mentors are invited to communicate directly with the Director and members of the Steering Committee.
ISABEL ESTRADA
FELLOWSHIPS PROGRAM DIRECTOR
PROFESSOR OF IBERIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN CULTURES
Professor Isabel M. Estrada (Ph.D., Columbia University) has authored two refereed monographs and numerous peer-reviewed papers. Her first book, El documental cinematográfico y televisivo contemporáneo: memoria, representación y formación de la identidad democrática española (Tamesis 2013), explores how a selection of documentaries produced for both film and television since 1995 engages with the discourse surrounding the so-called “recuperation of memory” related to the Spanish Civil War and dictatorship. In 2024, she published D€MOCRAZY in Spain: Cinema and New Forms of Social Life (1968-2008) with Liverpool University Press. It examines the 2008 financial and political crisis in Spain, analyzing both the ways in which it has been depicted by a new generation of filmmakers and how their practices strive to foster novel forms of social life.
Her articles have been published in prestigious journals such as Modern Language Notes, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, Hispanic Review, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, España Contemporánea, Catalan Review, and Revista Hispánica Moderna.
LAURIE WOODARD
FELLOWSHIPS PROGRAM, STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBER
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY
Laurie Woodard began her professional life as a dancer with the Dance Theater of Harlem. She completed her BA in History at Columbia University and her PhD in African American Studies and History at Yale University. Her research focuses upon the intersection between the cultural and sociopolitical realms and employs interdisciplinary methodologies, drawing from cultural history, performance studies, biography, and critical race theory. She is the recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Award; the National Endowment for the Humanities Schomburg Scholar-in-Residence Fellowship; and the Sylvia Arden Boone Prize. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Journal of African American History, and American Quarterly. Her book A Real Negro Girl: Fredi Washington and the New Negro Renaissance will be released by Oxford University Press in fall 2026.
JAMES BOOTH
FELLOWSHIPS PROGRAM, STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBER
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Professor Booth is an atmospheric scientist. His current research interests are centered around hazardous weather. He has projects on: (1) statistical analysis of the hazards; (2) climate model assessment and development related to hazards; and (3) theoretical work on the physics of the storms that create the hazards.
YANA KUCHEVA
FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM, STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBER
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY
Dr. Kucheva is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology at UCLA and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University. She is an expert on housing and social inequality. Her on-going research is at the intersection of U.S. housing policy, immigration, and environmental and climate justice. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Mellon Foundation.
RENEE PHILIPPI
FELLOWSHIPS PROGRAM ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTOR
Renee Philippi holds a BA (Theatre/Political Science minor) from University of Michigan, where she received the prestigious Maize and Blue Award and was valedictorian. She holds an MA (Creative Writing/English) from City College-CUNY, and an MFA (Theatre/ Directing) from Brooklyn College-CUNY.
She is a professional theatre director and writer and the Artistic Director of Concrete Temple NY. Her credits include work at/with the Public Theatre, Vineyard Theatre, CSC, Mabou Mines, Director's Company, Women's Project and Productions, La Mama Galleria, New Georges, HERE, Greenwich House Music School, Joe's Pub, Peculiar Works Project, 78th Street Theatre Lab, Palace Theatre-CT, Guadalupe Arts Center-TX, Southern Theatre-MN, Williamstown Theatre Festival-MA, Atlanta Arts Festival-GA, Deutsche Theater-Berlin, Tuchfabrik-Trier and Spiderwoman Theater.
Last Updated: 04/06/2026 11:03