Three Mosaic 2.0 grants allocated to Utrecht researchers

Kate Avis (Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences), Jeffrie Quarsie (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine) and Lorelie Tummers each receive a Mosaic 2.0 scholarship programme by NWO. The PhD scholarship programme is aimed at the group of graduates with a migration background from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central and South America and Turkey, as well as natives of North America and Oceania. The aim of the programme is to promote an inclusive working environment within Dutch knowledge institutions. 

Utrecht projects and laureates

An Exploration into Stage Models: Towards an Empirically-based Understanding of Grief

Worldwide, grief counsellors, bereaved persons, and those close to them often adhere to stage models of grief, which conceptualize healthy grieving as the passing through of sequential stages. However, there is a striking lack of empirical support for such models, causing some clinicians and scholars to warn against their potential harmful effects. This project by Kate Avis will comprehensively evaluate the validity and societal impact of stage models. This knowledge will form the basis for a psychoeducational intervention that provides reliable, evidence-based information about the grief process.
 

The impact of war-related pollution exposure on the incidence of congenital anomalies in Iraq

Military remnants have contaminated the Iraqi environment and have not been systematically cleaned up post-war, resulting in possibility sustained human exposure. Jeffrie Quarsie examines the increased rate of children born with birth defects in Fallujah. Researchers test the hypothesis of paediatricians that parental heavy metal exposure is associated with birth defects. This project compares parental heavy metal exposure of children with birth defects to parents of children without birth defects, through an epidemiological study design, exposure questionnaires, residential history, toxicological analysis of biosamples and soil and statistical analysis of collected data. This study forms a risk assessment for the Iraqi population.
 

Roots of Resilience: Unearthing the Experience of Racialization among transnational Adoptees in the Netherlands

How is it to grow up as an adoptee of colour in a white family? This ethnographic research studies the experiences with race and racism of adoptees of colour in the Netherlands. How do they experience and navigate being racialized differently than their parents? The project by Lorelie Tummers studies how adoptees of colour experience everyday racism and become resilient to it. It contributes to debates about the construction of racial ideas within the family, racialized migration, and critical adoption studies, and produces knowledge that will improve the wellbeing of Dutch adoptees.