Maria Montenegro
  • October 27, 2026

  • Global and international studies assistant professor is one of nine UC Irvine faculty members recognized by program that supports research by promising assistant professors

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María Montenegro, UC Irvine assistant professor of global and international studies, is among nine UCI assistant professors to be awarded Hellman Fellowships, which are bestowed annually to support research by junior faculty. They join an elite group of 112 UC Irvine Society of Hellman Fellows since 2013, when the Hellman Fellows Fund was established at UCI.

Montenegro's project, “Archiving Against Erasure: Documenting the Quiet Removal of Public Memory,” bridges her interests in critical archival theory, Indigenous and Native American studies, critical Latinx Indigeneities, Indigenous law and politics.

“Archiving Against Erasure documents the removal and alteration of monuments, exhibits, signs, webpages, and other forms of public memory happening across U.S. federal institutions,” she said. “By preserving what is being erased — and the traces these acts of erasure leave behind — the project builds an urgent, liberatory archive against forgetting and a record for accountability, community memory, scholarly inquiry and future generations.”

The Hellman Fellowship program began in 1995 at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego and has since expanded organically to all UC universities and three private institutions. In 2020, after 25 years of funding the fellowships, the Hellman family created an endowment to allow the awards to continue in perpetuity across UC’s 10 campuses.

In addition to Montenegro, the 2026-27 awardees are:

  • Anastasia Berg, assistant professor of philosophy, for a proposal titled “Intellectual Agency in an Age of Cognitive Automation: Cultivating Judicious AI Use in the Humanities”
  • Eupha Jeanne Daramola, assistant professor of education, for a proposal titled “The Implementation of the Science of Reading Curriculum and Pedagogy in California”
  • Rex Handford, assistant professor of chemistry, for a proposal titled “Unraveling CO2–to–Fuels Synthesis Through a Molecular Approach”
  • Prashanth Kamalakanthan, assistant professor of film and media studies, for a proposal titled “Special Topics”
  • Ana Kenney, assistant professor of statistics, for a proposal titled “Statistical Framework for Interpreting and Evaluating the Reliability of Causal Machine Learning”
  • Angela Rigden, assistant professor of Earth system science, for a proposal titled “Subsurface Water Storage and Plant Stress Under Rising Atmospheric Demand”
  • Luiza Osorio G. Silva, assistant professor of art history, for a proposal titled “Kings From Below: How Egyptians Navigated Royal Power in the Middle Kingdom”
  • Qi Song, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, for a proposal titled “Defining the Design Rules for Ultrathin Oxide Conductors”

“UC Irvine is proud to welcome the 2026–27 class of Hellman Fellows,” said Gillian Hayes, vice provost for academic personnel. “These nine assistant professors are driving research at the cutting edge, from foundational discoveries to real-world breakthroughs, and asking the hard questions that shape their fields. We’re grateful to the Hellman Fellows Endowed Fund for backing their boldest ideas and helping build the next generation of academic leaders.”

The Hellman family has given a total of $133 million to the fellows program, advancing the research and professional development of more than 2,000 early-career faculty. The grants may be used for such research purposes as equipment, travel, photography and graduate assistants. The aim of the program is to support promising assistant professors who show the capacity for great distinction in their research. Funds awarded are intended as a one-time subsidy for activities that will enhance individuals’ progress toward tenure.

A list of UC Irvine Society of Hellman Fellows may be accessed here.

-adapted from campus announcement

 

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