“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought”
- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Dr. Timothy J. Steigenga, Professor of Political Science at the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, has accepted a fellowship to serve in the Latin American Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. from May through July 2010.  The fellowship is funded by a grant from the Luce Foundation.  Sandra Lazo de la Vega, a recent graduate of the Wilkes Honors College, was offered an internship at the Wilson Center and will serve as Dr. Steigenga’s research assistant for the summer.
            Dr. Steigenga’s fields of specialization include the comparative study of religion and politics in the Americas, religious transnationalism, and immigration. He has published several books and articles dealing with the political and social impact of the growth of Protestantism in Latin America, religious conversion in the Americas, Latin America’s indigenous political resurgence, and religion and immigration.  Most recently, his research has focused on the role of religion and migration, as well as understanding the ways in which Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants mobilize for collective action in Florida and Georgia. This work has emerged from seven years of collaborative fieldwork with Guatemala-based academics funded by the Ford Foundation. The first stage of Dr. Steigenga’s research culminated in the publication of a co-edited book:  A Place to Be: Brazilian, Guatemalan, and Mexican Immigrants in Florida’s New Destinations (Rutgers, 2009). (For more information on the book, please see: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/acatalog/A_Place_to_Be.htm)
            While at the Wilson Center, Dr. Steigenga plans to delve further into the data gathered during his work in Central America, Florida, and Georgia.  As Dr. Steigenga said, “I intend to use my time at the Wilson Center to record, analyze, and compare data collected during the seven years of our Ford foundation projects.   I want to further explore the relationship between religion, transnationalism, and collective mobilization in four of the Guatemalan immigrant communities we have studied (Jupiter FL, Immokalee FL, Marietta GA, and Canton GA) and analyze survey data collected in Cobb County GA on inter-ethnic relations, stereotypes, and places of encounter between new Latino immigrants and Afro-American and white residents.”
             Dr. Steigenga will return to the Honors College in Fall 2010 and will offer an interdisciplinary co-taught course with Dr. Chris Strain, Associate Professor of History, on the history and politics of immigration in the United States.