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Melissa May Borja
Student, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
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Biography
Melissa is a 2004 graduate of Harvard College, where she was the recipient of research fellowships from the Center for the Study of World Religion, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, and the Harvard College Research Program. For her undergraduate senior thesis research, she was awarded the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize, the Coulton Prize, the Committee on Ethnic Studies Prize, the Harvard College Dean's Summer Research Award, and the History Department Junior Prize. In 2005 Melissa earned her M.A. from the University of Chicago, where her work focused on the Nation of Islam and its relationship with immigrant Muslims.
At Columbia, Melissa has continued to investigate the intersection of religion, migration, and politics in both national and transnational frame. In particular, she seeks to understand how religious beliefs and practices have developed in the context of American pluralism and the modern American state. Courses she has helped teach include Asian American History, U.S. Immigration History, History of the City of New York, and the History of Slavery.
For her dissertation research on the religious dimensions of Hmong refugee resettlement, Melissa has received an Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life Research Fellowship; a Shawn Family Research Fellowship; and a Foreign Language and Area Studies grant to study Hmong. She is also a past co-president of the Columbia Graduate History Association. When away from the archives and the classroom, she sings classical music, grows heirloom vegetables, and discusses current events during tea parties with her two-year-old daughter.
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