The Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University has announced 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.”

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. A mechanical engineering major pursuing minors in dance and computer science, 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.

Near Eastern studies major and theater minor 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.

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.

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. English major 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.

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.