Avalos and Ventura named 2018 Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellows

Natalie Avalos of the Department of Religious Studies and Julissa Ventura from the School of Education have been selected as recipients of the 2018 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship; Jeremy Calder of the Linguistics Department and Julian Resasco of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department have been renewed for a second year as Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellows.

Dr. Natalie Avalos will be joining the Department of Religious Studies under the mentorship of Dr. Greg Johnson, and will be focusing her scholarship on Indigenous theories of peoplehood and land stewardship that are based in religious traditions and impacted by colonialism. Dr. Avalos earned her PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Dr. Julissa Ventura will join the School of Education under the joint mentorship of Dr. Ben Kirshner and Dr. Enrique Sepúlveda from the Department of Ethnic Studies. Dr. Ventura's research aims to create critical culturally relevant social justice recommendations for pedagogical practices for use in secondary education using Youth Participatory Action Research with a group of Latinx youth, teachers and community workers.

The University of Colorado Boulder awards Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowships to postdoctoral scholars whose scholarship, teaching and/or service contribute to diversity in higher education. These one-year fellowships aim to provide fellows with protected time for scholarship or research in preparation for a tenure-track faculty application, and CU Boulder views these fellowships as an opportunity to recruit potential new faculty who will contribute to inclusive excellence. The program is particularly interested in applicants whose non-traditional backgrounds or understanding of the experiences of historically underrepresented groups shape the direction of their scholarship or research.

The Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is sponsored by the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Community Engagement. Applications for 2019 will be accepted in the Fall. For additional information, please visit the Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program website or email the program at cpfellows@colorado.edu.