The Dean of the College recently announced that four sophomores - Ana-Irma Patete, Raillan Brooks, Kyle Wynter-Stoner, Le Tran - have been selected for Mellon Mays Fellowships. The Mellon Mays Fellowship Program aims to increase the number of individuals from underrepresented minority groups in faculty positions at colleges and universities.

Each Mellon Mays fellow is required to conduct an individual research project under the guidance of a faculty mentor beginning in the summer after the sophomore year. Research continues through the junior and senior years and must include the summer prior to the last year of undergraduate study. Such research helps prepare Mellon Fellows for graduate study in their chosen discipline. Fellows who remain in good standing with the program receive a stipend for each of the two summers of their fellowship and for each semester of their junior and senior years.

Fellows gather in an informal setting at least once a month as a group to discuss their progress and their experiences. Fellows also travel to scholarly meetings to present their research projects, to visit research libraries, or to attend meetings relevant to their research. If a Mellon Undergraduate Fellow enrolls as a full-time student in an eligible Ph.D. program within three years of graduating from Brown, the Fellow may have up to $10,000 of his or her undergraduate student loans repaid by the Mellon Foundation.