The Freedman Center for Digital Scholarship at Kelvin Smith Library announced the recipients of the 2024–25 Freedman faculty and student fellows. The annual fellowship program supports advancing digital scholarship research projects from Case Western Reserve University faculty and students. The fellowships aid researchers in integrating digital tools and technology into their work across multiple disciplines to support learning and advance scholastic discoveries.
For more information or to schedule a consultation, contact freedmanfellows@case.edu or visit the Freedman Fellows Frequently Asked Questions page.
Faculty
The 2024-25 Freedman Faculty Fellows program is generously funded by the Freedman Fellows Endowment, established by Samuel B. and Marian K. Freedman. This year’s Case Western Reserve University faculty recipients are:
Erika I. Barcelos
Research assistant professor
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Case School of Engineering
Barcelos will use satellite imagery and health data to investigate the relationship between population mortality and ambient temperature rates in the United States.
Ayesha Bell Hardaway
Professor of law
CWRU School of Law
Director of the school’s Social Justice Law Center and its Criminal Defense Clinic
The Social Justice Institute looks to shed light on the economic and geographical changes on Cleveland’s east side that have affected minority business owners throughout the last six decades, specifically the impact on Winston E. Willis’ businesses.
Clara M. Pelfrey, PhD
Professor, Division of General Medical Sciences, Center for Medical Education
Collaborative Center for Clinical Investigation
CWRU School of Medicine
Evaluation director, Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative of Northern Ohio
Using specialized software and AI tools and data from networking websites, Pelfrey’s research aims to evaluate the leadership outcomes of the FLEX Leadership Development Program for Women Faculty at CWRU School of Medicine.
Students
Walter Freedman and Karen Harrison generously endow the 2024–25 Freedman Fellows student program. This year’s Case Western Reserve University student recipients are:
Olatunde David Akanbi
PhD student researcher
Center for Advancing Sustainable and Distributed Fertilizer Production at the Solar Durability and Lifetime Extension Center
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Case School of Engineering
Akanbi’s research focuses on enhancing precision agriculture through integrated geo-spatiotemporal modeling of nutrient flows while addressing environmental sustainability.
Micah Arafah
PhD student
Department of Sociology
College of Arts and Sciences
Arafah’s research will use optical character recognition scanning to digitize the private diaries of a woman born in the 1920s and raised in the rural Midwest—exploring historical and social changes through the eyes and words of a woman who experienced the Great Depression, WWII and the Civil Rights and Feminist Movements.
Walter Wexler
Third-year undergraduate
History major
Undergraduate Research Ambassador
College of Arts and Sciences
Wexler’s project will investigate Wabanaki (Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, Mi’kmaq and Maliseet Indigenous nations) naval raiding and its impacts on the colonial Atlantic economies of the early eighteenth century.