Meet the Mellon Fellows: Dr. Brittany Romanello

Dr. Brittany Romanello

Arizona State University
PhD, Anthropology

Host Site: Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail
Fellowship Title: Migration, Movement, and Place-making on the Anza Trail
Project Description: Dr. Romanello will use the trans-border nature of the Anza Trail to explore themes of human movement, identity, and place-making along the trail corridor within the borderlands of Sonora, Baja California, Arizona, and California. The Fellow will utilize sociocultural and ethnographic research methods to develop a community-based project that connects the public to the richness of the historical experiences of peoples along the trail and interpret how these histories shape contemporary life in the area.

Bio:

Brittany “Bri” Romanello earned a Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from Arizona State University. Her research in the Southwest and borderland areas used mixed ethnographic methods to better understand how the intersections of race, ethnicity, legal status, and religion shape Latinx immigrants' lives, social networks, family structures, parenting, and identity. During her Mellon Fellowship she will continue doing intersectional immigration and sociocultural research in the Arizona borderlands. Additionally, she is an affiliated researcher with Arizona State University, the Arizona Delegate for the Southwest Oral History Association, and a medicolegal death investigator for the Maricopa County Medical Examiner. On a personal note, Bri enjoys existing outdoors, buying too many books, cooking, thrifting, cumbias, film, and gardening.

This project was made possible through the National Park Service by a grant from the National Park Foundation through generous support from the Mellon Foundation.
Find out more about the Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.