Post-Graduate Fellowship in Narrative Medicine

Columbia Narrative Medicine revolutionizes health care through human connection and critical dialogue to improve health outcomes for all. Moved to action by the stories of others, we expand justice, equity, and attention to self, others, and systems of care.  Our mission is to develop narrative capacities of attention, representation, affiliation, and creativity by engaging literature, philosophy, other humanities, creative arts, and social and natural sciences. As each  fellowship nurtures future leader, creator, teachers, and scholars, the field of Narrative Medicine in turn grows.

 

CRITERIA

Guided by our mission to transform health care at both individual and structural levels through education, training, research, scholarship, and advocacy, all proposals must apply at least one of the following methods:

  • Education/training designed to integrating Narrative Medicine practices into medical and health humanities curriculums beyond Columbia University
  • Research to discover the impact and effectiveness of narrative practices in a given environment
  • Scholarship immersion to build expertise
  • Advocacy to address disparities exacerbated by various social determinants of health

 

ELIGIBILITY:

The Post-graduate Fellowship in Narrative Medicine is open exclusively to graduates who have completed the M.S. in Narrative Medicine as of Sept 1, 2025.  Partner or group applications of eligible Narrative Medicine M.S. grads are also welcome.   Former fellowship recipients and graduates currently employed by Columbia University are ineligible.

 

REQUIREMENTS:

  1. Cover page including project title; name and contact information of graduate(s), collaborator(s), and proposed supervisor​​​​​​
  2. Statement of purpose
  3. Project Description including location, background, need, and if applicable, previous related work including a literature review and organization/ institution association (including name of site supervisor)
  4. Specific aims coupled with a Year Long Time Table
  5. Itemized proposed budget to reflect division of expenses related to materials v. labor for each individual involved. Selected fellows will each be awarded within a range of $500-$4,000 depending on the scope of the proposal. (As CU alumnx are not provided free access to the library system, please make sure to budget in $30 for each month you anticipate needing access throughout your Fellowship year.)
  6. Anticipated impact, including (but not limited to) products such as published article, outcome analysis, presentations, curricular development, etc.
  7. Letter of Support from proposal supervisor including:
  • full name, affiliation
  • contact information
  • brief professional biography as it relates to their familiarity with the proposal topic
  • Signed statement that “if funded, the supervisor will actively advise through the entire Fellowship year (Sept 1, 2026 – August 31, 2027) thereby, seeing the project to completion.”

FELLOWSHIP ADVISOR/SUPERVISOR

Each proposal should identify an advisor or supervisor for guidance on the project. Advisors can be faculty of the Columbia Narrative Medicine program or another school/department within Columbia University. Members of the selection committee cannot serve as Advisors. Site Supervisors from another institution are also eligible.  Advisors/supervisors should be familiar with the area(s) of focus in the proposal and their roles may vary as per the scope and intended outcomes of the proposed project.  If a proposal intends for any human subject research activities to take place as part of the project, a faculty advisor must be eligible to submit documents to the corresponding IRB as a Principal Investigator (PI) for the project.  In some circumstances, an advisor may be recommended by the fellowship committee.

DELIVERABLES:

All fellows will be required to submit a mid-year written report, due on Monday February 2, 2026, and a final written report and/or presentation, due by Tuesday, September 1, 2026.  At the close of their fellowship year, all Fellows must present their work in a manner appropriate to the project structure. (e.g. publication v. presentation, etc.)

SUBMISSION

Alumni interested in applying should submit a proposal including the following information by Friday, July 31, 2026:

NOTE: In accordance with international tax laws and treaties, if selected, applicants who reside outside the US will be subject to 13-15% tax withholding and may apply for a tax exemption if a resident from an eligible country. Applicants under active J1 or H1 student visas at time of Fellowship application submission may not be considered for the duration of the visa.

 

 

2026-2027 Fellows

  • Layla Elkoulily, MS’22 | Narrative Medicine as a Means of Navigating Health Inequities and Illness Biases in Egypt
  • Melanie Fu, MS’20 | A Seat at the Table: A Narrative Project on Coming Out Experiences of LGBTQ+ Asians in Massachusetts
  • Iyana Gross, MS’25 | Grief Zine: A co-creation for Young Black Adults
  • Emily Wu, MS’26 | Listening to the Helpers: Narrative Medicine as Support for Harm Reduction and Addiction Care Workers
  • Zaheen Rashed, MS’25 | Beyond the Diagnosis: Developing an Evidence-Informed Educational Framework for Integrating Narrative Medicine into Internal Medicine Residency Education

2025-2026 Fellows

  • Lodovica Bo, MS'25 and Beth Cavenaugh, MS'25 |Narrative Echoes: Building Interdisciplinary Communication in Healthcare Through Narrative Medicine
  • Chelsea Hicks, MS'22 | Illustrated Illness Narratives, a mixed-methods research study grounded in visual storytelling and clinical empathy
  • Sarah Peltz, MS' 24 | Narrative Medicine: writing toward Publication in the Health Professions
  • Miniya Williams, MS'25 | It’s Your ‘Birthwrite’: (Re)claiming Embodied Birthwork Through Integrative Narrative Medicine and Somatic Abolitionism Practices as a Full Spectrum Doula for Low-Income Womxn of Color in Detroit, Michigan

2024-2025 Fellows

  • Jocelyn Brown, MS'23 | Rethinking Diversity of Texts and Visual Art to Address Structural Racism in Narrative Medicine Workshop, or Using Visual Thinking Strategies
  • Karla Ganley, MS'21| A Bed for the Night: Mobilizing Narrative Medicine Workshops for Addressing Moral Injury Among Unsheltered Homelessness Service Providers
  • Alec Lichtenberg, MS'16 | Curriculum/Course Development: Movement Medicine Exploring the body-subject as site and source of knowledge/meaning production and its implications for Narrative Medicine praxis.
  • Maya Sorini, MS'20 | Parallel Charting While Logging Required Clinical Experiences: A Pilot Project
  • Julia Takata, MS'23 | Narrative Medicine Workshop Facilitator Training for Hawaii Healthcare Educators, Professionals, Residents, and Students

2023-2024 Fellows

  • Margaux Danby, MS'20 | Narrative Medicine at UK: Faculty Education and Curricular Development
  • Hedyeh Elahenia, MS'23 | Embodied Muslim Women: Stories of Illness, Healing, and the Body
  • Chelsey Foster, MS'21 | Health Literacy and Incarceration
  • Sally Huang, MS'19 | Narrative Medicine in Public and Community Psychiatry: Developing a Narrative Medicine Curriculum for Leadership, Equity, Advocacy, and Policy (LEAP)
  • Alisha Kaplan, MS'23 | Food is Medicine: A Narrative Medicine Test Kitchen for the University of Toronto
  • Prasanna Karur, MS'22 | Highlighting Florida's Marginalized Voices in Healthcare: A Narrative Medicine Workshop Series for Preclinical Medical Students at Nova Southeastern University
  • Jennifer Leach, MS'19 | The Agony of Dafeet: Using Graphic Medicine to reduce stigma around foot health issues amongst low-wage workers
  • Penelope Lusk, MS'20 | Learning the Medicalized Self: Stories of Gendered Chronic Illness, Shame, and Belonging in Medical Education

2022-2023 Fellows

  • Nancy Chong, MS’22 | Challenging carceral visuality through zine-making: Re-authoring the narratives of oppression that incarceration bears on the former experiences of children with parents in the prison system.
  • Kate Marber, MS’22| Listening to stories of disability as a means to understand stories of hope for individuals with spinal cord injuries

2021-2022 Fellows

  • Matthew Argame, MS’20 | Cultivating Diversity-Conscious Development Actors & Working Toward the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by Using the Instruments of Narrative & Integrative Medicine
  • Lynette Chiu, MS’19 | Storied Lives: A narrative obituary project
  • Kanako Kiriyama Kitamoto, MS’21 | Art, Witness and Hope: NM Workshops for Diabetes-Related Stigma in Japan
  • Laila Knio, MS’21 and Harini Sridhar, MS’21 | Phenomenology of Identity: Mobilizing Narrative Medicine Towards the Care of Eating Disorders in an Acute and Post-Acute Setting
  • Lindsey Wright, MS’16 | Narratives of death, dying, and caring at the end of life in communities of color: an analysis of core narrative themes

2020-2021 Fellows

  • Enajite Igho, MS’20, Guneet Kaur, MS’20, Zahra Khan, MS’19, and Oluwatomisin Sontan, MS’20 |  The Life Jacket, a Narrative Medicine zine
  • Kathleen Frazier, MS’20| Creating an Embodied Anti-Racist Medical Culture: Narrative Medicine Informed Constructive White Conversations
  • Ramon Martinez Vale, MS’19 | Surveying race and racism in Puerto Rican medical education: a mixed-method approach
  • Joyeeta Dastidar, MS’19 | Narrative medicine sessions among Columbia internal medicine residents to address individual and structural racism in healthcare
  • Sarah Holdren, MS’20 and Yoshiko Iwai, MS’20 | Narrative Medicine at UNC School of Medicine: A New Approach for Anti-Racism in Medical Education

2019-2020 Fellows

  • Saljooq Asif, MS’17 | Phantom Physician and Illness Interrupted: On Narrative Ethics and Ghost Surgeries
  • Sam Barrick, MS’10 | Narrative Medicine in Research
  • Sally Huang, MS’24 | Advancing Culture of NM at Baylor College of Medicine: A Faculty Facilitator Training Program and Medical Student Curriculum
  • Deshae Jenkins, MS’19 | Narrative Medicine and Incarceration
  • Natalia Romano Spica, MS’19 | Stroke Narratives and ICU Support Tools
  • Jerry Rebollar, MS’19 | We: The S.N.A.C.C. Sessions
  • Lauren Manning, MS’19 | Surveying interest for the creation of a Narrative Medicine International network
  • Indigo Weller , MS’19 | Mapping the Paramedical Surround: Distributed Narrative Competence in Medicine and Family Systems

2018-2019 Fellows

  • Kelly Cunegondes, MS’18 | Voices of Vaccine-Hesitancy in a Waldorf School Community
  • Franca Keicher , MS’19 | Elective Course for Medical and Non-Medical students at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany
  • Jase Miles-Perez, MS’15 | NATIVES: VR limited series about rescue workers and refugees in the central Mediterranean
  • John Carlo Pasco, MS’15 | Boston University School of Medicine Narrative Medicine Elective
  • Pooja Mehandra Varmen, MS’19 and Sussanah Boyed, MS’19 | Murmurs in Medicine: a zine by and for underrepresented voices

2017-2018 Fellows

  • Charles Ethan Paccione, MS’16 | Narrative Medicine Workshop for Chronic Widespread Pain
  • Rachel Fox, MS’16 | Weight Stigma Reduction among Medical Students through Narrative Medicine
  • Sara Kohrt, MS’17 | Recording Patient Stories in Clinical Encounter PhotoVoice Training
  • Figen Biyik, MS’17 | A proposal to introduce Narrative Medicine to Istanbul Faculty of Medicine
  • Alexander R. Lichtenberg, MS’16 | This Land
  • Annie Robinson, MS'14 | Narrative Medicine as a Wisdom Practice

2016-2017 Fellows

  • Faiz Jiwani, MS'17 and Jenna Reece, MS'17 | Envisioning Narrative Competence in Medical Education: A Qualitative Study of Narrative Medicine Alumni in Medical School
  • Fatemeh Aldparvar, MS'17 | Evaluating Narrative Medicine Practicums: CUIMC Lang Youth Program
  • Ssanyu Birigwa, MS'16 and Apurva Khedagi, MS'17 |Exploring the Implementation of Narrative Medicine Workshops among Brooklyn Hospital Pediatric Residents
  • Heather Cariou, MS'16 | Applied Phenomenology: An Investigation of the Use and Practice of Theatre/Performance to Develop a Pedagogy and Syllabus for Teaching Core Efficiencies in Narrative Medicine
  • Roxana Delbene, MS '16 | On Conversational Narratives and Accounts
  • Lois Perelson-Gross, MS'16 | Talk about it: Using Narrative and Graphic Medicine to Encourage End of Life Conversations

2015-2016 Fellows

  • Elsa Asher, MS'14 | Narrative Medicine Program Development at Touro University of California College of Osteopathic Medicine
  • Patte Jordan Huberman, MS'14 |Narrative Medicine Group Program for Psychiatric Inpatients
  • Jonathan Chou, MS'15 and Ianthe Schepel, MS'15 | Community-Based Participatory Medical Education: Development of a New Narrative Medicine Intervention
  • Cherie Henderson, MS'14 | Supporting Publications and Presentations
  • Mya Sendowski, MS'13 | Creating a Narrative Medicine Community at Duke University Health System
  • Deborah Starr, MS'15 | Plain Talk Workshops
  • Indu Voruganti, MS'14 | Development of a Longitudinal Narrative Medicine Program for Pre-Clinical and Clinical Medical Students at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

2014-2015 Fellows

  • Donna Bulesco, MS'14 | The Intima, Refreshed
  • Marcus Engel, MS'12 | NarrativeNursing.com
  • Sneha Mantri, MS'11 | Does close reading lead to close listening?
  • Anoushka Sinha MS '15 and Lauren Kascak, MS '14 | Palliative Care Narratives
  • Chris Travis, MS'13 | Narrative Medicine Course at Case Western Reserve University

2013-2014 Fellows

  • Shannon Arntfield, MS '10 | Developing a Narrative Medicine-Based Postgraduate Medical Education Curriculum and Evaluation Tool as a Means of Training towards Residency Competencies
  • Mario de la Cruz, MS'12 | The Self-Reflection And Narrative Development Skills (SANDS) Project: Utilizing Narrative Medicine to Explore Identity and Influence Retention in Care and Health Care Provider Interaction for HIV+ Young Men who have Sex with Men
  • Gilliam Graham, MS'11 | Narrative Nursing
  • Holly Kuczynski, MS'13 | Sharing Stories six-week workshop
  • Martina C. Steiger, MS'14 | Exploration of the Field of Narrative Medicine in German-Speaking Countries: Review, Analysis, Networking, and Collaboration
  • Michael Smolka, MS'13 | On the Way to Medicine, a manuscript on the phenomenology of Suffering

 

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