The Department of Anthropology is proud to announce that Ihsan Arsalan has been awarded a 2026 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship. Generously supported by the Mellon Foundation and administered by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the program supports doctoral students in the humanities and social sciences as they pursue innovative approaches to dissertation research, including new methodologies, formats, and collaborations with community partners beyond the academy.
Arsalan is one of 50 graduate students selected from a pool of over 1,000 applicants through a rigorous, multi-stage peer review process that drew on the expertise of more than 170 scholars across the country. Each fellow receives an award of up to $52,000, consisting of a $42,000 stipend; up to $8,000 for project-related research, training, professional development, and travel; and a $2,000 stipend to support external mentorship that offers new perspectives on the fellow’s project and expands their advising network.
Arslan’s research investigates the emerging relationships between indigenous people, state actors, and glaciologists in the aftermath of catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods, from the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan to European laboratories. “When Frozen Worlds Flood” is a transdisciplinary collaborative study with indigenous people of Gilgit-Baltistan and glacier scientists that examines how they are shaping Karakoram glacial activity while being transformed by it, and how people, scientists, and glaciers encounter forces of the state, frontiers, and geopolitical specters. This project innovates “Traverse Ethnography” as a method and employs it in conjunction with participatory cartography, documentary-making, artistic practice, and scientific tools to reevaluate colonial legacies, environmental activism, and scientific retooling. Therefore, this study challenges the singular narrative of glacier loss in the current climate change discourse.
“The 2026 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellows present some of the most exciting and forward-thinking scholarship happening today in the humanities and social sciences,” said Alison Chang, ACLS Senior Program Officer in US Programs. “ACLS is proud to support their scholarship, and we look forward to following their impact in the academy and beyond.”
ACLS launched the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship Program in 2023 to expand and recognize a wider range of research methods, modes, and subjects in dissertation research. The 2026 awardees will pursue a range of approaches to the dissertation, incorporating trans-- and inter-disciplinary research, mixed methodologies, and non-traditional scholarly formats.