The award, open to UW doctoral students who have completed all the requirement of their degree except for the dissertation (ABD students) in the humanities or the social sciences, recognizes Marisa Duarte's "academic accomplishments, organizational energy, and scholarly promise."

The Fellowship is given by the organizers of the John Sawyer Seminar in Comparative Cultures at the University of Washington. As a Fellow, Durarte will be involved in the scholarly activities of the Sawyer Seminar, "B/Ordering Violence: Boundaries, Indigeneity, and Gender in the Americas."

According to the website, the University of Washington has a growing number of scholars in the humanities and social sciences who are working toward an innovative research agenda that incorporates three themes that guide the exploration of the borderlands in the Americas: (1) the discourses and practices of border-making; (2) Indigenous perspectives on political boundaries; and (3) gender and violence in the borderlands.

The Sawyer seminar will convoke a set of distinguished internationally recognized scholars whose work considers the complexities of external national borders in the Americas as well as the multiple internal borders that characterize the politics of belonging for diasporic and Indigenous communities in South, Central and North America.

The fellowship for 2012-13 covers the cost of tuition, includes a waiver of all components of tuition and mandatory fees, and provides a $15,849 stipend.