Alumni Story: Bennie Niles '15

I am a 2015 graduate of Dartmouth College from Clearwater, Florida. While at Dartmouth, I majored in African & African American Studies and served as the President of the Afro-American Society. My senior year, I was awarded a Senior Fellowship to produce a thirty-minute documentary film on the complexity of black male identity. I also received the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, William Cook-Louise Cook Jacobs Award, and Dean's Plate Award. Now, I am a second-year PhD student in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University. My research centers on black athletes to examine how black bodies are racialized and gendered in popular culture. AAAS was, and continues to be, integral to my growth as an emergent scholar.