Humanity in Action Fellowship Award

Pitt graduate Mehrgol Tiv has won a 2016 Humanity in Action Fellowship. She will conduct social science and humanitarian-based research in Amsterdam this summer.

Including Tiv, Pitt students have now won 16 Humanity in Action Fellowships since 2006.

Tiv graduated May 1 with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in psychology from the University Honors College and a Bachelor of Arts degree in French from Pitt’s Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. 

The Humanity in Action Fellowship program brings together international groups of university students and recent graduates to explore topics related to discrimination and social resistance as well as issues affecting underrepresented groups around the world. Fellows are selected on the basis of high academic achievement, evidence of leadership ability, and demonstrated commitment to human rights issues. For 2016, Humanity in Action has accepted 48 fellows from more than 500 applicants attending U.S. colleges and universities, who will join peers from institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, and Ukraine.

A native of Tehran, Iran, Mehrgol Tiv came to the United States at age 7, living first in Dallas, Texas, then in Pittsburgh’s North Hills. After enrolling at Pitt in 2012, Tiv assisted with research in Pitt’s biology and psychology departments. Her BPhil research focused on idiom learning and was conducted under the mentorship of Tessa Warren, an associate professor of psychology and a research scientist in Pitt’s Learning Research and Development Center. 

In the fall, Tiv will attend McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to earn a PhD in experimental psychology with a concentration on language acquisition.

As a Pitt student, Tiv received a University Honors College Community-Based Research Fellowship, a University Honors College Brackenridge Undergraduate Fellowship, the Dr. John Knox Hall Jr. Scholarship from the Department of Psychology, and an Alliance Française Nationality Room Study Abroad Scholarship.