2025 Dean's Distinguished Graduate Fellows

Dean's Distinguished Graduate Fellowship Cohort

2025 Dean's Distinguished Graduate Fellows

Cody Waters (Mathematics)

Cody Waters

Department of Mathematics (PhD)

Cody Waters is a Mathematics PhD student. He earned his bachelor's degree at Clemson University, where he was awarded the Goldwater Scholarship and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. His undergraduate research was on the compactness of pseudodifferential operators and bi-parameter Calderón–Zygmund operators. During his time at WashU, he plans to study non-homogeneous and Banach-valued harmonic analysis and explore other subfields of math.

Dabin Jeong (Comparative Literature)

Dabin Jeong

Department of Comparative Literature (PhD)

Dabin Jeong is a poet and a literary translator from Seoul, South Korea. They are the author of chapbook Swallow (Small Harbor Publishing, 2025), and hold an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa.

Their research interests include postcolonial poetics, Asian/American poetry, and ekphrastic practices in Eastern and Western poetry. At present, their research focuses on body horror as a feminist subversion in East Asian feminist literature.

Outside their work, they spend time tending to their indoor jungle of fifty houseplants or at art museums.

Jayden Sheridan (Political Science)

Jayden Sheridan

Department of Political Science (PhD)

Jayden Sheridan is a PhD student in the Political Science Department at Washington University in St. Louis, specializing in American politics with a focus on race and ethnic politics and gender and women’s studies. Her research uses intersectional approaches to examine how public opinion toward welfare policies varies depending on the race, ethnicity, and gender of the populations these policies affect. Sheridan earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Kentucky, with minors in Gender and Women’s Studies and Criminology, as well as a certificate in Peace Studies. In her spare time, Sheridan enjoys reading and playing video games.

Jenna Schultz (Anthropology)

Jenna Schultz

Department of Anthropology (PhD)

Benjamin Wexler is an incoming History PhD student. His research focuses on the modern history and theory of race, antisemitism, and the development of the nation-state. He grew up in Montreal, Canada and graduated in 2024 from McGill University with an Honors BA in History. His thesis explored the conceptual and legal relationship between colonial slavery and Jews in the last century of Old Regime France. Ben also writes journalism and has published creative work. His articles and interviews can be found in Dissent Magazine, The Canadian Jewish News, and La Revue K.

Khanh Nguyen (Psychological and Brain Sciences)

Khanh Nguyen

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences (PhD)

Khanh Nguyen is a PhD student in Psychological and Brain Sciences. She received her BS in Honors Neuroscience from the University of Texas at Austin. She is interested in leveraging behavioral and neuroimaging methods to explore how spatial-temporal context guides the formation of event memories and how these cognitive processes change with age. She is also interested in conceptual cognitive maps and spatial memory. In her free time, Khanh enjoys going to art fairs and markets, cooking, and spending time with her cats.

Michael Sam (Education)

Michael Sam

Department of Education (PhD)

Michael Sam Jr. is a PhD student in the Department of Education with a concentration in Education Policy. After spending over a decade working directly with youth as a school-based College Counselor, High School Teacher, Coach, and Pastor, he decided to embark on his own journey of exploring factors that influence the preparation and access of Black boys along the P20 educational pipeline. His commitment to this research was inspired by his own journey as a first generation college student at Rice University and years spent as a College Counselor. Michael also holds a Masters of Education in Educational Leadership & Policy with a certificate in Social Justice Leadership from Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development.

Nia Sampson (English and American Literature)

Nia Sampson

**Department of English and American Literature (PhD)**
Nia received her AB in English and Literary Arts from Brown University, where she was also a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow. Her research interests include Black girlhood, YA and coming of age literature, and the Black American South. Beyond her academic pursuits, she enjoys reading and creative writing.

Taha Ahmar Qadeer (Creative Writing, Poetry)

Taha Ahmar Qadeer

**Department of Creative Writing, Poetry (MFA)**
Taha Ahmar Qadeer (he/him) aims to graft a voice in the white noise of in-betweenness. His academic and creative work explores postcolonial studies through the softened lens of liberation psychology, and poetry. For his undergraduate senior thesis, he explored the sense of belonging, attainment, and satisfaction among queer and feminine-presenting South Asian students in American higher education, alongside developing a collection of poems that continues to shape his manuscript. He has co-authored a publication on the relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) and food insecurity and has been part of R0VER Magazine—a digital and print platform showcasing the work of queer creatives of color—since its inaugural issue. Beyond his writing, Taha engages with performance art, dance, and theater, practices he intends to carry forward in his creative life. He received his BA in Psychology and Literature from Bennington College and is currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry.

Yutong Zhang (Germanic Languages and Literatures)

Yutong Zhang

Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures (PhD)

Yutong Zhang is a PhD student in Germanic Languages and Literatures, whose research interests concentrate on the influence of multilingualism on the German language used in the former German Democratic Republic. As a WashU alumnus, Yutong holds a B.A. in Linguistics and German, as well as a M.A. in the Humanities from the University of Chicago, where he further examined multilingualism and multilingual education in WWII-era Manchuria. In his free time, he teaches German and Coptic as a foreign language, meanwhile enjoying traveling and collecting all types of unusual memorabilia.

Dean's Distinguished Graduate Fellows 2025 Summary Page

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CURRENT CohoRT

2025 Dean's Distinguished Graduate Fellows

Dean's Distinguished Graduate Fellowship Cohort

Cody Waters (Mathematics)

Cody Waters

Dabin Jeong (Comparative Literature)

Dabin Jeong

Jayden Sheridan (Political Science)

Jayden Sheridan

Jenna Schultz (Anthropology)

Jenna Schultz

Khanh Nguyen (Psychological and Brain Sciences)

Khanh Nguyen

Michael Sam (Education)

Michael Sam

Nia Sampson (English and American Literature)

Nia Sampson

Taha Ahmar Qadeer (Creative Writing, Poetry)

Taha Ahmar Qadeer

Yutong Zhang (Germanic Languages and Literatures)

Yutong Zhang

Dean's Distinguished Graduate Fellows 2025 Summary Page

See this year's Dean’s Distinguished Graduate Fellowship Cohort