Meet the 2025 Artist Development Fellowship Recipients

THE OFFICE FOR THE ARTS ANNOUNCES 10 UNDERGRADUATE ARTISTS TO RECEIVE ARTIST DEVELOPMENT FELLOWSHIPS

The Office for the Arts at Harvard and the Office of the Dean for the Arts and Humanities announce the 2025 recipients of the annual Artist Development Fellowships. The program supports the artistic development of students demonstrating unusual accomplishments and/or evidence of significant artistic promise. The program is administered by the OFA, the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships and the Mignone Center for Career Success, and is open to sophomores and juniors, and seniors in extraordinary circumstances, currently enrolled in Harvard College. 

Learn more about opportunities offered by the Office for the Arts.

Literature

Mila Jao Barry ‘25, a resident of Lowell House concentrating in English, is awarded a Fellowship to develop her debut poetry collection, tentatively titled Strange Feet. Barry’s poems have been featured in The Harvard Advocate and Pigeon Pages. Earlier this year, Raptor Press published her debut chapbook Wenzhou Street Sonnets, a tribute to the novelist Qiu Miaojin.

Andrés Muedano ’27, a resident of Adams House concentrating in Comparative Literature, is awarded a Fellowship to attend the Buzzards Bay Term at the Gull Island Institute in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Muedano is an organizer for Writing for the Climate, a member of The Harvard Crimson editorial board and a contributing journalist for Inside Climate News. He is also an undergraduate fellow at the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics.

Garry Nitz ‘26, a resident of Mather House concentrating in Comparative Literature, is awarded a Fellowship to write a collection of interrelated stories exploring Harlem as the site of the Black American Renaissance to trace alternative knowledge in the style of Saidiya Hartman’s "critical fabulation." Nitz's work has appeared in The Harvard Advocate, where he is the fiction editor, and Indigo Magazine, where he is editor-in-chief. He has studied craft at Harvard with writers Jesse McCarthy and Raven Leilani.  

Multi-disciplinary

Gabby Anderson ‘26, a resident of Kirkland House concentrating in Economics, is awarded a Fellowship to travel to London and participate in the Luxury Business program at Sotheby’s Institute of Art. A member of the Harvard Crimson women’s basketball team, Anderson owns and operates Graffiti by Gabby, a custom shoe company, and has partnered with the NFL, Nike and WNBA icon Sue Bird. She is a member of the Harvard Black Arts Collective and president of the Harvard Association of Black Varsity Athletes.

Milo Schwalbe ‘25, a resident of Lowell House pursuing a joint concentration in Comparative Literature and Art, Film, and Visual Studies, is awarded a Fellowship to travel from Berlin to Paris to create a multi-disciplinary art project documenting cultural and geographical divides across borders in Northern France and Western Germany through literature, film and contemporary art. Schwalbe is a recipient of the 2024 Eduard F. and Mary Patricia Sekler Student Travel Fund Award for the Visual Arts. He has interned at various galleries and publications, including Fort Gansevoort, Numéro Berlin and Lindsey Media.

Music

Ethan Chaves ‘26, a resident of Winthrop House pursuing a joint concentration in Music and Philosophy, is awarded a Fellowship to travel to Spain to participate in the Valencia International Performing Arts Festival. Chaves is a violinist, violist and composer whose work has been recognized by National YoungArts, From the Top, ASCAP, Ensemble Altera, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Bohemians Club of New York, Tribeca New Music, American Viola Society and Harvard Pops Orchestra. Chaves is concertmaster of Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and principal violist for Brattle Street Chamber Players.

Dexter Griffin ‘27, a resident of Quincy House concentrating in Psychology, is awarded a Fellowship to apprentice under Cody Fayne, Grammy Award-winning record producer in Los Angeles. Griffin has worked with several notable artists and producers, including global R&B superstar SZA. Griffin is a board member of the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College and the Harvard Undergraduate Music Business Association.

Enoch Li ‘26, a resident of Kirkland House, is concentrating in Mathematics, and in Violin Performance through the New England Conservatory of Music dual degree program. Li is awarded a Fellowship to travel to Aspen, Colorado, to attend the Aspen Conducting Academy. Li has served as the assistant conductor of Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, music director of Bach Society Orchestra and assistant music director of Harvard College Opera and Lowell House Opera. As a violinist, Li has played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta and is a substitute violinist for the New World Symphony.

Visual Arts

Manar Abrre ‘26, a resident of Winthrop House concentrating in Neuroscience, is awarded a Fellowship to develop Internal, a portfolio of anatomical and medical illustrations. Abrre has served as research assistant for LIBERaTE Lab and was an Art Tech Winter Residency Fellow for Conflux Collective. 

Zakiriya Gladney ‘27, a resident of Dunster House pursuing a double concentration in Statistics and Social Studies, is awarded a Fellowship to travel to Tunisia and Spain to develop a photography project examining the impact of modernity on Arab cities. Gladney was a YoungArts finalist in photography and a 2023 U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts. Gladney serves as an art board editor for The Harvard Advocate and an editorial executive for The Harvard Crimson. 

Council on the Arts members at the time of selection were:  
Robin Kelsey (Chair) Shirley Carter Burden Professor of Photography, History of Photography and American Art; Remo Airaldi, American Repertory Theater; Lecturer on Theater, Theater, Dance & Media; Alicia Anstead, Producer, Harvard Arts Festival; Associate Director for Programming and Communications, OFA; Daniel Chong, Professor of the Practice in Music, Parker Quartet; Fiona Coffey, Director, OFA; Angélica Durrell, Director of Programs, OFA; Elizabeth Epsen, Manager of College Dance, OFA Dance Program; Phillip Howze, Associate Senior Lecturer on Theater, Dance & Media; Ruth Stella Lingford, Professor of the Practice of Animation, Arts, Film and Visual Studies, Film Study Center Fellow; Laura Quinton, Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies, Lecturer on Theater, Dance & Media; Matt Saunders, Professor of Arts, Film and Visual Studies, Director of Undergraduate Studies (on leave 2024-25); Elaine Scarry, Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value and Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellow; Yosvany Terry, Senior Lecturer on Music, Director of the Jazz Orchestra.