Each year, the Leon Levy Center for Biography offers support to two CUNY Graduate Center Ph.D. candidates whose dissertations utilize a biographical approach to their subject matter. Dissertation fellows participate in the LLCB Seminar and receive funding for a year of dissertation research and writing.

2012 - 2013 Dissertation Fellows

Peter-Christian Aigner
American History

Peter-Christian Aigner is a doctoral candidate in the History Department whose dissertation is titled "Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the Reconstruction of Liberalism, 1965-1996."

Lauren Kaplan
Art History

Lauren Kaplan is a doctoral candidate in Art History whose dissertation is titled "Crossing the Atlantic: Italians in Argentina, 1916-1946."

2011 - 2012 Dissertation Fellows

Thomas W. Hafer
American History

Thomas W. Hafer is a doctoral candidate in American History. His dissertation explores art, identity, and sexuality from the 1930s through the 1970s by examining the lives and works of such bohemians as Parker Tyler and Charles Henri Ford.

Ikuyo Nakagawa
Art History

Ikuyo Nakagawa is a doctoral candidate in Art History. Her dissertation will examine all aspects of the career of Japanese-born painter, Tsuguharu Foujita, in the international context of the historical avant-garde.  

2010 - 2011 Dissertation Fellows

David J. Gary
History

David J. Gary is a doctoral candidate in American history.  His dissertation explores the life of Rufus King (1755-1827), an anti-slavery U.S. Senator, through his reading and the use of his library, which grew to about 3,500 volumes at his death.   

Anna Mecugni
Contemporary Art

Anna Mecugni is an Italian doctoral candidate in contemporary art. Her dissertation—"A Voyage of Identities: Luigi Ontani and the Postmodern Question in 1970s Italy"—deals with Ontani and the early emergence of postmodernism in the visual arts.

2009 - 2010 Dissertation Fellows

Helen Decker
English

Helen Decker recently received her doctorate in English literature. Her dissertation focused on the writing Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes produced during the eight years of their marriage.

Lars Kokkonen
Art History

Lars Kokkonen is a doctoral candidate in art history. His dissertation examines British artist John Martin in light of the scholarship of the past thirty years.