Braden Storytelling Grants - 2024 Cohort
2024 Braden Grant Projects
Our 2024 cohort includes stories from Ethiopia, Peru, Guam, and the United States. You can hear their reflections on their grant experience here:
Fadie Arabo
Fadie Arabo is a sophomore studying biology and education. He wants to share his experience as one of the only Chaldean-Americans on Stanford’s campus to research this unheard of community to many. Come on a journey with him as he explores who Chaldeans are, their place of community, and their unique culture from Iraq to the USA.
Location: USA
Langston Buddington
Langston is a junior majoring in Urban Studies and pursuing a coterminal master's degree in public policy. Born and raised in Oakland, California, he is passionate about advancing equity through policy and urbanism--and now, storytelling. Langston has cherished podcasts since middle school, and he's excited to create his own that investigates the narratives of urban change in Addis Ababa that chronicle its conflict, growth, and resilience. Location: Ethiopia
Natasha Zia Charfauros
As a Chamoru and Filipina woman majoring in Human Biology and minoring in Economics, Natasha Zia is interested in understanding how to create sustainable economic systems for human health and culture and loves learning about culture, language, and food systems.
Viva Donohoe
Viva Donohoe is a junior studying American Studies with a concentration in Silicon Valley, Digital Culture, and the American Experience. She was raised in San Francisco and studies the city’s history through archival research and alternative histories alike. Her project examines the way that the 1960's country music industry taught Appalachian women how to behave, and how murder ballads gave them a way to be angry.
Jenny Duan
Jenny Duan studies Symbolic Systems and Data Science. Her fascination with understanding Chinatowns began during high school, when she started filming video documentaries sharing the stories of Chinatown residents in her hometown, Portland, Oregon. She looks for a Chinatown in every city she visits. Through the lens of food and Lima's "Chifa" cuisine, Jenny's project explores how Lima's Chinatown has influenced the development of a unique Chinese-Peruvian identity and its place in the wider (South American) Chinese diaspora.
Arusha Patil
Arusha is a junior majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Public Health, interested in how technology can increase health equity. Outside of her academic interests, she's an avid climber/dancer, aspiring ukeleleist, and a "snapper" (her favorite podcast is Snap Judgment with Glynn Washington). Her project explores how people with ADHD are often left out of clinical trials, and the importance of science's ability to reflect the people it's serving. Location: United States
Cassie Mylia-Frances Shaw
Cassie Shaw: the girl, the myth, the legend… is a zealous creative of nearly every medium under the Sun. Her English, Creative Writing major acts as an umbrella to explore poetry, screen and fiction writing, comic creation, and audio storytelling. This junior’s passion for creation stems from a desire to develop a space for digestible social commentaries and an opportunity for people to learn about different lands, cultures, and experiences — especially Korea (which she studies as an E.A.S. minor to cultivate deeper ties to her heritage). Every year there are students who don’t walk the stage at graduation and don’t earn their degree despite the blood, sweat, tears, and years put into preparing for and attending their 'elite' university. The decision to leave cannot be easy, which begs the question: why? In this podcast we will hear from elite school dropouts about what pushed them to leave, and might just dispel myths about academic burnout and entrepreneurship in the process. In her quest to dispel myths about Dropout culture and raise awareness about systemic issues in elite universities, her project uncovers what pushes students from top universities to dropout.
Priyanka Shrestha
Priyanka Shrestha (she/her) is a senior studying computer science on the biocomputation track with a minor in creative writing. Priyanka's father is an infectious disease physician, and through spending a lot of time in and around hospitals with him in her childhood, she nurtured an early fascination for science and medicine. Now, as an aspiring physician herself, Priyanka seeks to better understand how we can best leverage technology to improve medical knowledge and practice without sacrificing the human connection that is at its core. Digital Diagnosis will explore the history of the medical exam from its humble roots of tapping different part of the body to the modern day routine, and ask how has the integration of technology into medical decision and diagnosis-making changed the meaning and impact of this ritual for both physicians and patients.
Alex Strong
Alex Strong is a Designer - storyteller, craftsman, tinkerer - at Stanford University. He believes in curious methodical exploration of whatever issue is at hand. He loves making things and is always excited to talk about plants and anything else in the outdoors. His project is about how climbers added safer permeant climbing equipment to natural spaces and the enormous fallout from the community around this issue, and the seemingly contradictory values of access and safety in natural spaces.
Location: United States
Questions? Contact SSP Managing Editor Laura Joyce Davis.
Listen to previous Braden grant projects Get details about applying