Each year scholarship aid is provided to one or more URI students who are engaged in the study and application of nonviolence and peace, and in building beloved community from the personal to the global level.
Contribute to the Art Stein Scholarship for Nonviolence and Peace Studies:
Give NowThe Art Stein Scholarship Recipients for the 2022-23 Academic Year
Kate Sylvester
About:
Kate is a graduate student working on her M.A. in International Relations, with a concentration in Diplomacy. She has a master’s degree in Intercultural Communication and Public Relations. Kate is passionate about promoting mutual understanding, conflict reconciliation, inclusive communities, and peacebuilding.
This year, Kate received her Level I certification as a Kingian Nonviolence Trainer. She has assisted the Center for Nonviolence & Peace Studies as a Research Fellow since 2021. Kate is a member of the A&S Equity & Anti-Racism Committee. Her research interests include Human Rights monitoring around the world.
Previous recipients
2019 Recipient – Jocelyn Malave, (Rhode Island)
About:
Jocelyn is passionate and dedicated to advancing peace in our society. She is a Level 2 Kingian Nonviolence trainer. She re-established the SNCC club (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Council) on campus. Jocelyn has served her community by educating her peers about the importance of Nonviolence. At URI she has hosted events through SNCC, to help aid in the construction of Nonviolence centers in other countries. As a recent graduate of URI, she aspires to be the change she wishes to see in the world by guiding schools and workplaces to use Nonviolence practices in their everyday activities. – From Nonviolent Schools RI
Terrell Parker, (Rhode Island)
About:
Terrell is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island and current graduate student studying International Relations. He is a level 2 Kingian Nonviolence trainer. At URI he was a member of the SNCC student organization and did peace building work on campus. Outside of school Terrell is an activist. Some of his passions include the Black Lives Matter movement, Women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrant protections, gun violence prevention, and educational equity. Terrell is currently involved in municipal government and ultimately aspires to influence public policy toward fostering a more peaceful community in schools throughout Rhode Island. – From Nonviolent Schools RI
2018 Recipient – Mecca Smith, (Rhode Island)
About:
In 2013 I graduated from URI focusing on Cultural anthropology and documentary filmmaking with minors in leadership and nonviolence and peace studies. I love traveling the world and was able to travel to Nepal, Mexico, and Belize twice as an undergraduate. Right now, I’m focusing on issues that are close to my heart right here at home in Providence Rhode Island. I am an AmeriCorps member at The Institute for the and Practice of Nonviolence. I have been waiting a long time to take the Level 2 training and now I am excited to travel the world through my lens of peace and social justice and sustainability!
2017 Recipient – Ashley Muscatelli, (Rhode Island)
2016 Recipients – Monee Reis, (Rhode Island)
Michael Bonilla
2015 Recipients – Oluwafunmike (Becky) Kayode, (Rhode Island)
Kerwin N. Amo, (Rhode Island)
About:
Kerwin Amo is a Policy and Project Coordinator at HCFA. His work focuses on prescription drug affordability and private insurance policy work. In his role, he provides research, legislative, coalition building, and administrative support. Prior to HCFA, Kerwin worked as a medical case manager (MCM) at Boston Medical Center, where he provided case management and social services support to women and children living with HIV/AIDS. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Health Studies and Health Promotion from The University of Rhode Island and a Masters degree in Public Health from Boston University School of Public Health in Health Policy and Law. – From Health Care For All
2014 Recipients – Micael Esteban Figueroa
Kathleen Dutton, (Rhode Island)
About:
My name is Katelin Dutton. I have participated in disaster relief programs all over the U. S. I have worked on assignment photographing indigenous textile artisans in Peru and Guatemala and fundraised for non-profits such as Doctors without Borders and Save the Children. In 2012, I worked in Uganda photographing and gathering stories of women living in extreme poverty. I am currently the director of a chanting group in Newport, RI and see this training as an opportunity to learn more about nonviolence leadership, build my own leadership skills, and integrate the skills in the chanting group.
I attended the URI Center for Nonviolence & Peace Studies Nonviolence trip to Nepal in 2014 as an Alternative Spring Break.
2013 Recipients –
Samdelia Kotate Roberts
Marilyn Brenda Soum, (Cambodia, Rhode Island)
About:
As a Communications major with focus in Public Relations at URI, I am hoping to use my nonviolence knowledge to train internationally starting from my mother’s homeland, Cambodia.
2011 & 2012 Recipient – Eden Grace Kalyanapu, (Maine)
About:
Graduated in 2013 from URI in Business. She has been a valued member of the Center staff and joined us on an amazing trip to Nepal.
2010 Recipients –
David Nelson, (Rhode Island)
Michaela Cashman, (Rhode Island)
About:
Panelist: Michaela Cashman is a Biologist at the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Atlantic Coastal Environmental Sciences Division in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Michaela’s research focuses on contaminants of emerging concern, with an emphasis on man-made chemicals in marine environments. One aspect of her research are microplastics: small pieces of plastic (<1 mm) that end up in our environment. In 2019, Michaela collected sediment samples from Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island to analyze for microplastics. Her research is one of the first attempts to characterize microplastics on the ocean floor of Narragansett Bay. Michaela is also a PhD candidate at the University of Rhode Island in the Department of Geosciences. – From URI Honors Colloquium Archives
2009 Recipients – Lea Ann Richardson
2008 Recipients –
Ludmila Tsikhotsky
Brandon Brown, (Rhode Island)
About:
Brown was the first URI student to serve consecutive terms on the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education, and he spent the spring of 2009 as a program coordinator for the Young Voices Central Falls/Scope program. He was also a camp counselor and activities coordinator for the URI Transportation Center and has been a mentor with Rhode Island Children’s Crusades.
“The University has been an opportunity for me, as well as for my peers, to absorb information and find our own place in the world we are in, based not only on the history we come from, but also the future we are mutually working to create,” Brown said.
While at URI, Brown worked with several campus leaders and was especially close to President Robert L. Carothers and Gerald Williams, director of URI’s Talent Development program. He also worked with the Rev. Bernard Lafayette Jr., former director of the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies. – From URI Alumni Magazine
Shane Lee, (Rhode Island)
About:
Shane Lee is the Nonviolence Facilitator at the Nonviolence Institute in Providence, Rhode Island. In June 2023, Shane was awarded the Level 3 Nonviolence Trainer’s Certification for Institutionalizing and Internalizing Nonviolence during the 24th Annual International Nonviolence Summer Institute. Shane completed his Level 1 Kingian Nonviolence Trainer’s certification in 2007 and Level 2 Advanced Nonviolence Leadership Training in 2008 from the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island.
Andrew McQuaide, (Rhode Island)
About:
A graduate of the University of Rhode Island, Andrew was active with the URI Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies. As program coordinator of their International Nonviolence Summer Institute, Andrew helped expand the program, bringing participants from around the world, including Israel-Palestine, Somalia, and Tibet. Concurrently, Andrew became a certified Kingian Nonviolence trainer and has led nonviolence trainings in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Georgia, and in Abuja, Lagos, and Obubra, Nigeria. Committed to the development of his community, Andrew also serves as Treasurer on the Board of Directors for both the Charlestown Chamber of Commerce and the Chariho Alumni Association. – From RhodyBeat
Stephen Yang
About:
Since completing his nonviolence training at the Center’s Summer Institute in 2008, Stephen Yang spent time in a national teaching fellowship for Citizens School a nonprofit organization which is an alternative education program that tackles low student test scores through harboring urban youth with the local community and his nonviolence training helped him mentally for this program. Stephan spent last year in the Philippines working with an NGO, another nonprofit that focuses on corporate social responsibilities projects that are designed to eliminate poverty through education. Here he created a curriculum along with activities designed to support these students from extreme poverty with different modules that were created to meet the goals of program. Through team building activities that involved dialogue with students from different school districts, he used this to create a beloved community by focusing on having the same goals for academic success despite the different places they were from. Stephan was chosen for Boston Residency Teacher Program that is a district based teacher program and this semester was teacher assistant for PSY478: Nonviolence. He believes the nonviolence courses at URI are important for the student body and the University of Rhode Island (URI) as a whole. The Center is now developing a larger presence on campus because nonviolence is recognized as a discipline that is absolutely essential for all students in all aspects of life. It is also inarguably a discipline that will insure the continuity of social justice domestically and internationally. So, students that attended our class are vanguards of peace and they will bring the light of the Center into the URI community and beyond. We need to see more students involved and engaged with the Center. – From Become the Change Newsletter