Davis Fellowship
Preservation Studies doctoral student receives graduate fellowship
8:15 a.m., June 7, 2012--Marina Dobronovskaya, a University of Delaware doctoral candidate whose research focuses on Soviet cities after World War II, has been awarded the Robert R. Davis Graduate Fellowship in Art History, Preservation Studies and Art Conservation to support her final year of work.
Dobronovskaya, who expects to complete her dissertation next spring, will earn her doctorate in the Department of Art Conservation’s preservation studies program. She is examining postwar urban planning and historic reconstruction in cities in the then-Soviet Union.
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A UD committee chaired by David Stone, professor in the Department of Art History, selected Dobronovskaya for the award.
Her dissertation, “The Material Culture of Stalinism: The City of Novgorod, Urban Reconstruction, and Historic Preservation in the Soviet Union after World War II, 1943-1955,” aims to analyze the ideology of urban planning and the philosophy and plans for reconstruction of historic towns.
Dobronovskaya said she hopes to "show what impact postwar reconstruction has had on present-day urban planning and preservation policies.”
She also recently was awarded a Dissertation Completion Fellowship by the Mellon Foundation and American Council of Learned Societies. That fellowship, given to 65 recipients annually, supports a year of research and writing to help advanced graduate students in the humanities and social sciences in the last year of their doctoral dissertation writing.
Davis is a UD alumnus who retired from his position as vice president for development and alumni relations in 2007 to become director of development at Winterthur Museum. A member of the UD staff beginning in 1977, Davis served as assistant vice president for alumni and University relations for two years before becoming vice president and held a number of previous positions.
He earned two bachelor's degrees from UD, in political science in 1971 and art history in 1979, and in 2003 completed the Henry F. du Pont Winterthur Museum Winter Institute.
