Post-Doctoral Fellowships
The University of New Mexico’s Center for Regional Studies (CRS) annually offers an post-doctoral research fellow position.
Deadline to apply: Typically in January
Stipend/Resources:
- The award will be $50,000 (12-monthly payments).
- A $2,000 stipend will be provided for research, travel, and related expenses.
- CRS will provide office space.
Qualifications:
- Ph.D. or M.F.A. completed prior to the start date of July 1st
- Area of study in an academic discipline aligned with the CRS mission
- Promise for original scholarship in an area associated with the CRS mission
FY26 CRS Postdoctoral Fellow, Joseph Ukockis
Joseph Ukockis received his PhD in History from the University of New Mexico in Spring 2025 with a focus on Native history and Borderlands. His book project explores the strategic relationships that Mescalero Apaches made with their neighbors from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, and links seemingly disparate stories—concerning various ancestors across vast homelands over two centuries—together with the land (i.e., place names). As a Center for Regional Studies Postdoctoral Fellow, Joseph will spend the year adapting material from his dissertation, continuing to connect to the community on the Mescalero Reservation in developing the project, researching and drafting additional chapters, and creating maps from place names and archival data to accompany the book.
FY26 CRS Postdoctoral Fellow, Emma Ressel
Emma Ressel (born Bar Harbor, ME) is an artist working with large format film photography, re-photography, and archives. Her current work researches natural history collections to examine how we describe nature to ourselves over vast timescales. Ressel earned her BA in Photography at Bard College and her MFA at the University of New Mexico. In the 2025-2026 academic year, she will conduct a Post-Doc Fellowship at the Center for Regional Studies at UNM. Ressel was a recipient of the Film Photo Student Project Award and held an Emerging Artist Fellowship at Strata Gallery in Santa Fe, NM, where she had a solo show in May 2024. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Jurassic Technology. The catalog for her MFA thesis show, Extant Erosions, was self-published this year, and the exhibition is on view in Albuquerque through June, 2025.
FY25 CRS Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Zonnie Gorman
The Center for Regional Studies at The University of New Mexico recently selected Dr. Zonnie Gorman to hold the Center’s postdoctoral fellowship from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025.
Gorman recently received her doctorate in History from UNM and completed a graduate minor in Museum Studies. Her interests include Diné masculinity and identity, the intersection of Indigenous masculinities and 20th-century wars, and memory and memorialization. Gorman is a professional longtime public historian, lecturer, and consultant on the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II.
Read the full story on UNM News
Midpoint Report on Progress Made by Zonnie Gorman on the Carl N. Gorman Collection
As the Center for Regional Studies Post-Doctoral Fellow for 2024-2025, I am working at the Center for Southwest Research (CSWR) processing the Carl N. Gorman Collection (1907-1998). This 52-box collection chronicles the life of Carl Gorman, a Navajo Code Talker in World War II, an educator, artist, and culture bearer. The collection includes a mixed assortment of formats, i.e., paper ephemera, audio/visual materials, and photographic images. For this post-doc year I have focused on the 35 boxes of paper ephemera in the collection that include correspondence, publications, news clippings, magazine articles, circulars, pamphlets, handwritten notes, reports, and course materials that cover a wide swath of Carl’s life and careers: Navajo Club of Los Angles (1950s), Art (1950s-1990s), Otis Art Institute (1950s), UC Davis/Native American Studies (1969-1974), CN Gorman Museum at UC Davis (1974-present), DQ University (1970s), ONEO Navajo Culture Center (1960s), Navajo Arts & Crafts Guild (1960s), UNM-Gallup (1980s-1990s, Diné College (Navajo Community College) (1970s-1980s), Navajo Nation Museum & Library Foundation (1980s), UNM Honorary Doctorate (1990), his sons, R.C. Gorman (1931-2005), and Alfred Kee Gorman(1957-1966).
