Research News

Kate Brown selected for Horowitz Foundation grant

Kate Brown standing outside
Kate Brown (Steve Green/Vanderbilt University)

Kate Pride Brown, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Vanderbilt University, has been awarded a grant for research from the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy. Every year, the Horowitz Foundation awards grants of $7,500 to approximately 15 doctoral students who illustrate merit in policy-related research in all major areas of social science.

“I am truly honored to be among those selected for research funding from the Horowitz Foundation,” said Brown, who was awarded the grant for her proposed dissertation, “Saving the Sacred Sea: Baikal Environmentalism from the Soviet Union to Globalized Modernity.”

“My dissertation, which compares environmental activism in the Soviet Union and present-day Russia, tackles issues that lie at the heart of social inquiry, such as democracy, freedom, civil engagement and the possibility of progress,” she said. “With this grant, I can devote full attention to my research over the next semester, and I couldn’t be more grateful.”

Brown has previously won the Dissertation Enhancement Grant from Vanderbilt University, the U.S. Student Fulbright Fellowship with the Institute of International Education and several other notable scholarships and grants for her work.

Since 2007, Brown has taught and lectured at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Sociology. Her research interests include political sociology and social movements. With her research, she investigates how processes of modernity, such as globalization, market capitalism, political pluralism and individualism, impact civil society.

The Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy was established in 1997 as a not-for-profit organization to support the advancement of research and understanding in the major fields of the social sciences; specifically, in the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, urban affairs, area studies, political science, and other disciplines. The foundation aims to achieve its objectives primarily through direct assistance to individual scholars who require small grants to further their research with emphasis on policy-oriented studies.

By Morgan Franklin