The Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University announces more than $145,000 in awards to support the summer projects and research of 55 Princeton undergraduates. While all first, second, and third-year students are eligible to apply for the awards, for many recipients the funding provides vital resources to conduct research, undertake training, and pursue other opportunities critical to achieving their senior independent creative project goals in the arts. The grants range from $300 to $8,000.
Rising seniors Julianna Martin, Maya Sessions, and Nadine Allache have been selected for the Alex Adam ’07 Award. Established in memory of Alexander Jay Adam ’07 and made possible through a generous gift from his family, the award provides each student with $7,500 to spend the summer pursuing a project that will result in the creation of new artistic work. While a student at Princeton, Alex Adam pursued artistic interests in creative writing and theater. Joyce Carol Oates, his creative writing professor, praised Adam’s work as “sharp-edged, unexpectedly corrosive, and very funny.” Additionally, Adam was an actor and performed with the Princeton Shakespeare Company, Theatre Intime, and the Program in Theater.
“Compelling creative work requires bold exploration and rigorous research,” said Lewis Center Chair Judith Hamera when announcing the awards. “We are so grateful to the Alex Adam ’07 family and all whose generosity provides our students the summer funding to do both and are eager to see where these opportunities take them.”
Photo courtesy Julianna Martin ’26
Julianna Martin, who is majoring in the Practice of Art in the Department of Art and Archaeology, will spend her summer developing experimental photography-based work for her senior thesis exhibition in spring 2026. Her work explores how disrupting a photograph’s surface alters its meaning and physical form. By manipulating Polaroids and darkroom prints—peeling, dissolving, and reshaping them—Martin challenges photography’s perceived flatness and permanence. She plans to photograph her grandparents and the shifting natural landscapes of her Northern California hometown and record Polaroid emulsions floating underwater. Following this trip, she will experiment with chemical processes in the Lewis Center’s Program in Visual Arts darkroom and design interactive installations that will inform her exhibition.
Photo courtesy Maya Sessions ’26
A mechanical engineering major pursuing minors in dance and computer science, Maya Sessions plans to spend her summer in Japan, San Francisco, San Jose, and Chicago taking classes and workshops, conducting research, and attending performances. Her experiences will lead to choreographing a new dance as her senior independent work in the Program in Dance to be performed in spring 2026. Her piece will explore the feeling of sonder–the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as one’s own. The work will draw inspiration from Butoh, an improvisational Japanese art form that originated from observations of the common Japanese person forgotten by society and centers on the outward expression of feelings and awareness emerging from the inner world of the body; FoCo, a contemporary dance form rooted in Chinese classical and folk dance and created by recent Princeton Dance Festival and Hearst Choreographer-in-Residence Yue Yin; and American contemporary modern dance technique. Sessions’ work will also be informed by her Japanese-American roots and her observations of human interaction in crowded public spaces, such as traditional Japanese festivals, particularly the dichotomy of public interaction in American versus Japanese cities.
Alex Adams award winner, Nadine Allache on May 2, 2025. Photo by Jon Sweeney
Near Eastern studies major and theater minor Nadine Allache will utilize her funding to conduct research and write a new play based on the folktales passed down in her family for generations among the Amazigh, the indigenous people of North Africa. She will begin by transcribing the stories recorded by her grandmother in the Tamazight language before the stories are lost forever. This summer, Allache will spend 10 weeks in New York City living within an Amazigh and Near Eastern studies community through the New York Forum of Amazigh Film (NYFAF). Through his community she will connect with Amazigh creatives and playwrights, consult with experts in the field, and have access to space while working on the play’s script. Her play will be presented during the Program in Theater and Music Theater’s 2025-26 season.
Rising seniors Nsebong Adah and Destine Harrison-Williams have been selected for funding through the Mallach Senior Thesis Fund. This award, established by Douglas J. Mallach ’91, supports the realization of proposed senior independent projects that incorporate historical research and create an alternative path to learning history.
Photo courtesy Nsebong Adah ’26
Nsebong Adah, an African American studies major who is also pursuing minors in visual arts and African studies, will return to Cape Town, South Africa, to continue working on his ongoing photo series Rhythms of Labor. The project was born from Adah’s research on Apartheid-era documentary photographers in the 1950s and 60s. As one of nine 2024-25 fellows in the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies Undergraduate Fellowship, Adah traveled to Cape Town to investigate the lasting legacies of Apartheid through labor, movement, and immigration in metropolitan Cape Town. This summer he plans to add to that existing body of work with the intention of self-publishing a photography book and exhibiting large-scale prints through the Program in Visual Arts.
Photo courtesy Destine Harrison-Williams ’26
English major Destine Harrison-Williams, who is pursuing minors in creative writing, theater and music theater, and African American studies, will conduct research in the Black community in Philadelphia to inform his original play inspired by the city’s deep history of Black theatrical resistance and arts activism during political crises. He plans to immerse himself in Philadelphia’s Black arts community during the summer—attending performances, engaging with local artists, and conducting historical research—to gain the necessary insights to craft an authentic and historically grounded story. His play represents his senior independent work in the Program in Creative Writing.
In addition to funding for projects and research, some students received support to undertake internships. The Bernstein Fund for the Arts Fellowship supports student summer fellowships at prominent arts institutions, such as American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, The Public Theater in New York City, Ireland’s Abbey Theatre, the Brooklyn Museum, McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, and with the organization Maestra Music. Recipients this year include graduating seniors Wasif Sami and Alex Slisher, rising senior Elena Milliken and rising juniors Jane Buckhurst and Marlie Kass. Rising junior Isabella Rivera will also have an internship at the American Repertory Theater supported by the Tiger Baron Fund. Victoria Koretsky, a rising senior, is the recipient of funding through the University’s Learning and Education through Service (LENS) program, established to help students find diverse summer service and social impact internships and to help pay for associated costs. Rising senior Madison Davis has received support to attend the Yale Norfolk Program, a six-week artistic summer residency program.
Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about the Lewis Center for the Arts and the more than 100 public performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts, lectures, and special events presented by the Lewis Center each year, most of them free.
