Apr 7, 2026
Hande Sever, a PhD candidate in Visual Arts, and CARTA Graduate Specialization in Anthropogeny student, has been awarded the UC President's Dissertation Year Fellowship for 2026–2027. The competitive fellowship, which includes a $32,500 stipend plus tuition and fees, supports promising doctoral students in the final stages of their research.
Sever's work sits at a rare crossroads: part art history, part archaeology, part emerging technology. Her dissertation examines sites like Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe in Anatolia — among the oldest known monumental structures in human history — and traces the ripple effect of their discovery worldwide, particularly among artists grappling with questions of human origins.
