Perspective: Top Grad Students Honored

2013 was a big year for Martha Gonzalez. In addition to earning a PhD in gender, women and sexuality studies, she was honored with an A&S Graduate Medal and a Grammy Award. The Graduate Medal and Grammy have more in common than one might assume, since Gonzalez’s music—her band, Quetzal, won the Grammy for Best Latin Pop, Rock or Urban Alternative Album—is inspired and informed by her scholarly work.

Gonzalez’s PhD dissertation, “Chican@ Artivistas: East Los Angeles Trenches Transborder Tactics,” concerns the development of Chicana music in East Los Angeles from the 1990s to the present. “In addition to music theory and Chicana feminist theory, I was surprised and blown away by Martha’s use of feminist development theory [in her dissertation],” comments Priti Ramamurthy, chair of the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies.

The Grammy and the Graduate Student: Melding Music and Scholarship

Academic fellowships are prestigious; and for graduate students who earn them, fellowships can help set the stage for illustrious careers. They are competitive. They come with money. They have titles like Fulbright and Ford.

But what really impresses people in and out of the academy is a Grammy Award—something that UW graduate student and Grammy winner Martha Gonzalez discovered at a job interview shortly after she took home the gold.

“Usually, when I talk about my music, people are like, ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s nice.’ But upon mentioning the Grammy her band won, eyebrows shot up.

“This time, they were all, ‘What? Really?'” she said. “They know Fulbright. They know Ford Foundation. But the Grammy seemed to get more of a reaction.”