Graduate student Eli Alston-Stepnitz reflects on the winding path that led him to public scholarship, and how he leverages his skills and experience in a variety of experiences outside his field of study.

The projects this year's Mellon Public Scholars completed over the summer of 2020 generated structures of community care, built platforms for art and stories from marginalized communities, provided necessary perspectives on systemic injustice, and served as examples of public scholarship’s crucial role in today’s world.

The Davis Humanities Institute honors the UC Davis scholars who are committed to public scholarship in these unprecedented times and share some of the challenges and responses of our community-engaged researchers. 

Hannah Adamy, a 2019 Mellon Public Scholar, spent her summer creating spaces for women and gender-expansive musicians in Sacramento to come together and jam. In the search to bring people together as jam participants, Adamy learned about the different needs of different musicians and the practical challenges of musical spaces.