Fellows will present documentary films, graphic narratives, oral history projects, educational websites, and game-based research.
Doha, Qatar: Undergraduate researchers from Northwestern University in Qatar’s Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South (#IAS_NUQ) will present original scholarship alongside leading international academics at the 2026 International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) Conference, marking a significant milestone for the Institute’s Global Undergraduate Fellowship.
Following a rigorous blind peer-review process, twelve projects developed through the year-long fellowship were accepted to the conference, with ten featured in the final program. The fellows will present alongside graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and established scholars from around the world, reflecting the scholarly quality of their work and the strength of undergraduate research at Northwestern Qatar.
“The work of our undergraduate fellows demonstrates what is possible when students are entrusted with ambitious research and supported through close mentorship,” said Marwan M. Kraidy, dean and CEO of Northwestern University in Qatar. “Their participation at IAMCR reflects not only the quality of their scholarship, but also our commitment to cultivating the next generation of researchers whose work expands knowledge production from and about the Global South.” Together, they demonstrate how rigorous research and creative practice can generate new ways of understanding complex social issues while bringing underrepresented perspectives into international academic conversations.
Many of the presentations embrace multimodal forms of scholarship, an area that sits at the heart of #IAS_NUQ’s mission. Fellows will present documentary films, interactive digital experiences, graphic narratives, oral history projects, educational websites, and game-based research that combine academic inquiry with evidence-based storytelling.
Five fellows will present original documentary films exploring themes ranging from displacement and cultural memory to migration, gender identity, and women’s lived experiences. Their work will be shared both through scholarly conference presentations and through the conference’s Flow34 screenings, creating opportunities for delegates to engage with research through multiple forms of storytelling.
Other fellows will present innovative digital and creative projects, including an interactive oral history documenting the experiences of Ahiska Turks, an educational platform exploring Kazakh ornamentation, a graphic novel examining gender-based violence in Kyrgyzstan, and an immersive game prototype centred on the 1986 Jeltoksan protests in Kazakhstan.
Maryam Al-Musleh’s paper on Gulf Television, for example, is one of only two papers on the Gulf region in the programme.
