Decol Futures: July 10, 2025

Focus: I Am Exhausted By You Zine and 5 Funded Data Fellowship Opportunities

Author

Dana Reijerkerk
July 10, 2025

A newsletter to learn about practical ways to decolonize your research and data work-lives with byte-sized drabbles about the daily life of a data professional.

Behind the Scenes: I Am Exhausted By You Zine

Hello hello! I do a lot of writing for my data work and I like to share it with others in our profession so you see possibilities for doing data things.

For the last few years, I’ve been thinking about how to share all my projects like writing, exhibits, proposals that never got published. Cause I got a lot! So I made a zine and self-published it. I don't want the lack of pretty bylines or journal titles to stop me from sharing my work. This format is also fun! I got to put some of my digital art doodles into this, which makes me smile.

Feel free to download and share.
-Dana

I Am Exhausted By You Vol. 1

This issue features a short article titled, "Dear Survivors of the COVID-19 Pandemic Experience," that I wrote in December 2023 when I was wrapping up a data science fellowship project. My project involved me using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to create something cool with an assigned data set of Philadelphia Black public art. A core point of my project was that AI imagery of black and brown skin is horror-esque. AI often creates the uncanny valley effect with multiple limbs or facial features not in the right spots. I wrote this piece as a companion to my project to expand on how generative AI images was horror content that can be related to current world events.

zenodo.org/records/15749735

Curated Content: Funding Opportunities

All of these can be used to fund data projects.

Various Research Project Fellowships at the Library of Congress

Kluge Center Fellow : 4-11 month residential fellowship ($5,000 USD stipend per month) doing a project related to the Humanities, social sciences and professional fields such as architecture or law using the library’s collections. You need a graduate degree to apply. Residential means you got to be on site FYI.

Kluge Fellowship in Digital Studies: Up to 11 months ($5,000 USD stipend per month) doing a project in any discipline that encompasses digital scholarship, digital humanities, data science, data analysis, data visualization, and digital publishing that utilize digital collections, tools, and methods. Unclear if this is remote.

David B. Larson Fellowship in Health and Spirituality: 6-12 month residential fellowship ($5,000 USD stipend per month) doing a project on health and spirituality. You need a doctorate degree. Residential means you got to be on site FYI.

Philip Lee Phillips Society Fellowship: 2 month senior fellowship ($5,750 USD per month stipend) doing a project using collections of the Geography and Map Division. Cool GIS project? History project?

All applications due September 15, 2025 11:59pm ET (check your time zone!)

$2,000 $4,000 USD Freelance Fellowship (Remote)

Remote fellowship for indie journalists with investigative projects that deal with whistleblowers, business ethics or privacy issues. This is perfect for us data people. You could write about information privacy, data privacy, data ethics, AI, ML, UX Design of website privacy statements, or business ethics of technology or film and media companies (e.g. Apple, Google, Netflix, HBO).

Funding: Up to $4,000 USD for long term projects and up to $2,000 USD for short term projects plus a one year membership and 2 hour consultancy for reporting and legal services with Freelance Investigative Reporters and Editors

Submission due September 29, 2025 11:59 pm CT (check your time zones!)

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