Congratulations to Kate Buskirk, who was awarded a Portz Interdisciplinary Fellowship from the National Collegiate Honors Council! This fellowship offers funding for students to pursue cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary research that transcends traditional academic boundaries.
Kate's project, "Subcultural Swan Songs: Electronic Music, Economic Uncertainty, and the Future for Gen Z in the United States," will explore if and how conditions of economic and infrastructural precarity are encoded in the auditory and social aesthetics, organizational forms, and social norms of alternative musical subgenres among youth in the urban East Coast area of the United States.
Kate is a current third-year student in the Pennoni Honors College pursuing a custom-designed bachelor of science consisting of concentrations in economic theory, mixed-methods research methodology, and historical/ contemporary social studies. Kate's transdisciplinary research investigates the intersection of various ways of knowing and analyzing socioeconomic phenomena.
At her first co-op with Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, Kate contributed to mixed-methods research on the regional arts economy which was featured in articles from The Philadelphia Inquirer and WHYY. Her second co-op with The Environmental Collaboratory allowed her to strengthen interdisciplinary skills in data visualization and communication, quantitative research, survey design, and audio engineering.
Kate is a member of the Honors Program and was also a 2024 STAR Scholar, a 2024-25 Aspire Scholar, and a UREP undergraduate research mini-grant recipient.
About the Portz Fellowship
The Portz Fellowship program was launched in 2010 and is supported by the John and Edythe Portz Interdisciplinary Research Fellowship. It is intended to support creative and innovative endeavors that cross boundaries, inviting application from individuals who wish to undertake cross disciplinary research or form a team of two or more students from different disciplines who propose a single collaborative project.
Honors students in good standing may apply at any point in their undergraduate studies. Students must work with the Pennoni Honors College to apply. To learn more, please email Kevin Egan, our Director of Outreach, at kde25@drexel.edu.