Student Fellows
Natalie Johnson
Email: natmj@stanford.edu
Natalie is a writer, director, multimedia artist, and senior at Stanford. In her stories and art she thinks a lot about dystopia, utopia, dreams, synchronicity, home, and revolution. She loves traveling, and can also be found on campus organizing with the Black Feminist Collective.
Jayla Kilson
Email: jkilson@stanford.edu
Jayla Kilson is a radical black feminist studying Science, Technology, and Society (STS), known by most for her direct and unforgiving takes on the importance of protecting and uplifting Black and Indigenous women and LGBT+ people. Drawn to the complex histories of Black people, specifically those who had their religions, languages, and cultures forcibly stripped from them during chattel slavery, Jayla spends much of her time delving into ancestry, inspecting the cultural influence of Black slave descendants across global mediums, and battling to decolonize people and spaces almost everywhere she goes.
Rachel Lam
Email: rlam13@stanford.edu
Rachel Lam is a senior majoring in psychology. Her mother's family is Cherokee Nation and her father's family is from Malaysia. This year, Rachel's art practice will focus on drawing.
Valeria Sawers
Email: vsawers@stanford.edu
Valeria was born in Puerto Cortes Honduras and moved to the U.S at a young age. Most of her art is based around her childhood in Honduras, featuring bright colors and tropical plants. She specializes in hand stitched embroidery and dabbles in poetry. She loves to create art that features stories, both of hers, and of her family.
Maya Salameh, Artist-in-Residence at The Markaz: Resource Center
Email: mayasal@stanford.edu
Maya Salameh is a psychology major and poet whose work centers around reviving and recollecting all her origins, whether Syrian or San Diegan. She is currently working on a book, habibi, focused on hyphenation's effect on the displaced body. Her chapbook, rooh, is forthcoming with Paper Nautilus Press in 2020.
Angel Smith
Email: asmith61@stanford.edu
Angel Marie is a creator and major in African and African American studies repping Chicago with her whole heart. Writing with and for her ancestors she envisions the liberation of all people from the settlement of their bodies by colonial powers. Her current projects focus on the alchemy of love recognizing the ritual power accessible when we meditate on healing the dissonance between body and earth, returning to collective consciousness.
Shannen Torres
Email: shannent@stanford.edu
Shannen is a proud Dominican from New York. Their lived experience informs their research on Black and brown struggles in urban communities and how artwork, like graffiti, reflects this history. Moreover, they are interested in how artists’ work within such communities leads to personal and collective radicalization. They are currently working on their B.A. in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CSRE) with a concentration in Identity, Diversity and Aesthetics.
Morgan-Me'Lyn Grant
Email: mgrant22@stanford.edu
Morgan is a senior majoring in African and African-American Studies. A two-time IDA fellow, Morgan is this year's fellows co-chair.
Student Staff
Maya Acharya
Email: maya.acharya@stanford.edu
Maya Acharya is a queer desi music maker and history student from the bay area. They are interested in museums, education, asian american history, maps, spacetime, and riddles. You can check out their first EP at soundcloud.com/mayamakesmusic or follow them on instagram at @mayamakesmusic
Katie Lan
Email: katielan@stanford.edu
Hi! My name is Katie and I'm a third year student studying Urban Studies and Earth Systems. Hailing from the Bay Area, I have an immense love for the diverse and dynamic communities. I'm interested in practices that center environmental justice and help foster the intersection of art and activism. Beyond IDA, I'm in the fields learning how to grow food, exploring issues of Asian American activism, and making art to help process this wild and wonderful world we live in!