Previous Knapp Fellows

2023-24

Blake Coleman

Blake Coleman is a senior in Public Health with a pre-medical concentration at the Milken Institute School of Public Health.

Project Title: Educational Enrichment: Promoting Academic Achievement Among Children Suffering from Homelessness in Washington, DC Post COVID-19

Project Description: The project is an educational enrichment program for young, primarily black children experiencing extreme poverty and homelessness in Washington, DC. The program met monthly and offered additional academic support to children, primarily in the subjects of math and reading. Due to online learning during COVID-19, many homeless children missed out on years of schooling and learning due to a lack of access to the internet or electronic devices.

Faculty Advisor: Karen A. McDonnell, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Prevention and Community Health at Milken Institute School of Public Health at The George Washington University

Community Partner: Community of Hope

Jessica Hinshaw

Jessica Hinshaw is a doctoral student in the Human and Organizational Learning Ed.D. Program, Graduate School of Education and Human Development.

Project Title: Supporting Community Health Centers Build Climate Resilience

Project Description: Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs, also known as community health centers) are uniquely positioned to address climate change challenges and build community resilience.

Unfortunately, both research and anecdotal reports from health centers show that they are unprepared and need more learning materials and learning/networking initiatives to address climate change.

To respond to these needs and desires, this community-engaged research project,

Formws a Community Advisory Committee consisting of FQHC staff and community members
Conductws qualitative case study research to identify and understand how FQHCs carry out climate change mitigation and resilience practices
Created a compendium of resources and opportunities for FQHCs to dialogue, learn, and collaborate with one another on climate change issues

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Maria Cseh, Associate Professor, Human and Organizational Learning, Graduate School of Education and Human Development

Community Partners: The National Association of Community Health Centers and various local community health centers

Simone Sawyer

Simone Sawyer is a Social and Behavioral Sciences doctoral student at the Milken Institute School of Public Health.

Project Title: A Pilot to Increase Peer-to-Peer Mental Health Supports in DC Public High Schools: Utilizing a Method for Program Adaptation through Community Engagement (M-PACE) Framework

Project Description: This project aimed to increase access to youth peer mental health support for DC high school youth. The national youth mental health crisis is alarming, and DC high school students are feeling its impact. DC youth want and need support and also want to be part of finding solutions to this crisis.

Utilizing the M-PACE framework, this project worked with key stakeholders to identify an appropriate and feasible evidence-based peer-to-peer mental health curriculum and train 8 DC high school students at two schools in the evidence-based peer-to-peer mental health curriculum.

Faculty Advisor: Olga Acosta Price, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Prevention and Community Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health

Community Partner: The Young Women's Project, Our Minds Matter, Black Swan Academy

2022-23

Bailey Moore

Bailey Moore along with her faculty advisor for the project Dr. Maranda Ward (Knapp Fellowship Alumnus) from the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences, worked with Black high school girls in select DC Public High Schools along with the community partner, Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington DC (PPMW).

The intended benefit of the project was to address the difficulty many Black girls face when it comes to maintaining a positive/healthy self-image and sexual self-concept while recognizing factors that come with this difficulty and the stigma surrounding sexual health that has plagued the Black community for far too long. This was done through a lens of intersectionality and focused on positive youth development.

She collaborated with the staff for Sisters Informing Healing Living and Empowering (SIHLE) to create and facilitate the program while involving the youth to amplify their voices and develop the most informative and effective curriculum that fits with the mission of PPMW but also fits with the needs of the young ladies who will be involved in this program.

Jennifer Ko

Jennifer Ko and her faculty advisor for the project Dr. Sean Cleary, Professor of Epidemiology from the Milken School aimed to allow adults with developmental disabilities (DD) to participate in a 10-week health and wellness course and learn the basic principles of healthy activities that can be easily recalled and applied in their everyday lives.

Our Stomping Ground (OSG) was the community partner, a non-profit organization with a mission ‘To build inclusive communities and strengthen neighborhoods through diverse programming, sustainable, affordable housing, and social spaces for people of all abilities.

Grace Rafferty

Grace Rafferty and the faculty advisor for her project, Dr. Michelle Kelso from the Department of Sociology at the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences designed this project in collaboration with the Dunbar community, specifically aiming to work with high school students. It impacted the students, counselors, DCPS counseling office, and GWU community through the implementation of this project.

To pilot this program, Grace worked with Steve Rockey in the DCPS Counseling Office, Wendy Wagner in the Honey W. Nashman Center, Dr. Michelle Kelso of the Human Services & Social Justice Department, the counseling team at Dunbar High School led by 9th-grade counselor Emma Levine, and two student mentors Yemisola Animashaun and Asim Ebrahim.

Knapp Fellows from 2022-23, (From left to right) Jennifer Ko, Grace Rafferty and Bailey Moore

In April 2023, The Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Community Service was honored to showcase the impressive projects and achievements of the three selected Knapp Fellows, Jennifer Ko, Grace Rafferty and Bailey Moore.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THEIR PROJECTS

The event was attended by other students and hopeful applicants, faculty members, community partners, and Nashman staff. It featured presentations by the fellows about their experience with their fellowship, community engagement work, lessons learned, and reflections. There was a Q&A and reflections section, which saw some fantastic participation from the audience as well.

2021-22

2018-2019 Knapp Fellowship awards were given to Gillian Joseph for her project Find Our Women, which is an initiative focused on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in the US and Kristen McInerney for her project on Fostering resilience in Newly Arrived Immigrant Students.

2017-2018 Knapp Fellows Gayatri Malhotra & Chloe King presenting their research at the 2017 Nashman Symposium of Community Engaged Scholarship. Gayatri is working on gender sensitization in Indian schools & Chloe is working on food waste and environmental impact in DC Public Schools.

2016-2017 knapp fellows maranda c. and zinhle essmuah

The 2016-2017 fellowship cycle was awarded to : Maranda C. Ward, a doctoral candidate at the Graduate School of Education and Human Development, who won for her project, “D.C. Youth Expression: Art, Community and Identity,” and School of Media and Public Affairs master’s student Zinhle Essamuah for “The Minority Vote” a film documentary following youth voters as the go to the polls in the primary elections.

2015-2016 Knapp Fellows Mariam Adil and Samantha Cook

The 2015-2016 fellowship cycle was awarded to : Mariam Adil, a Masters student in the Elliot School of International Affairs ’16, who is developing video games as learning tools for international development projects called “Stereo-Wipe” and Samantha Cook , a undergraduate in the Elliot School of International Affairs ’16, who won for her project “Digital Hope” a digital and marketing communications curriculum to help teach digital literacy skills to homeless populations so that they can have access to micro-work environments.

2014-2015 Knapp Fellows Paulina Sosa and her team

The 2014-2015 fellowship cycle was awarded to one project: Pop Art -Painting Out Poverty’s mission is to unite artists in a fight against poverty in DC neighborhoods.
Through sharing our painting, music, poetry, and other arts, we hope to collectively end disparities in the community . This team is being lead by Paulina Sosa a graduate student in the Milken Institute of Public Health ’16 and was announced on June 1, 2014.

2013-2014 Knapp Fellows Emily Rasowsky , Ivonne G Ramirez, and Aly Azharand

The 2013-2014 fellowship cycle was awarded to two projects: Ascension GW a yogatherapy program to assist victims of sexual assault led by Emily Rasowsky , Ivonne G Ramirez, and Aly Azharand Mobile Medical Care a mobile primary care van that travel to wards that had limited to access to primary care facilities led by Ben Trevais, Mary Kaldas, and Tri Hiremath . These fellows were announced on April 27, 2013, at the Spring Service-Learning Symposium.

2012-2013 Knapp Fellows Sofi Momen, Amir Abdallah and Manmeet Sandhu

The 2012-2013 fellowship cycle was awarded to two projects: the Financial Literacy Program coordinated by Sofi Momen and Amir Abdallah and Waste Diversion DC by Manmeet Sandhu and Reshma Arrington. The fellows were announced on May 1st 2012, at the Spring Service-Learning Symposium.

The Knapp Fellowship for Entrepreneurial Service Learning was launched in 2011. The first fellow was Melissa Eddison, then a junior who launched a sustainability project with the goal of creating a GW co-op café.