Past Winners
Conductor/Composer Benjamin Perry Wenzelberg ‘21
Mr. Wenzelberg will spend his fellowship year continuing in the second year of the National Master in Orchestral Conducting program in Amsterdam, as well as participating in the 2023 Mahler Competition in Bamberg, Germany and pursuing conducting opportunities in Europe. He will also pursue avenues to advance his original opera and senior thesis, NIGHTTOWN, which has just won a 2023 ASCAP Morton Gould Composer Award and whose premiere recording will be featured in the 2023 Bloomsday Film Festival in Ireland. Benjamin’s mentor will be conductor Alan Gilbert (AB ‘89). Mr. Gilbert is principal conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and music director of Royal Swedish Opera. He was music director of the New York Philharmonic from 2009 to 2017 and principal conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra from 2000 to 2008. He holds the title of conductor laureate with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic.
Harvard Artist Launch Fellowship, 2023-24
Filmmaker/Visual Artist Uzo Ngwu ‘23
Ms. Ngwu will spend her fellowship year focusing on completing the production of her 2D animated film MMANWU, which began as her thesis project. Uzo will be mentored by renowned filmmaker Mark Osborne. Mr. Osborne is known for his work in both animation and live-action directing. He gained acclaim for co-directing the highly praised film Kung Fu Panda, which garnered an Academy Award nomination and earned over $630 million worldwide. Mr. Osborne's other notable achievements include his award-winning stop-motion animated short More and his contributions to the popular TV series SpongeBob SquarePants, as well as being a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship. His diverse portfolio showcases his talent and creativity in both animation and live-action storytelling.
Writer/Director Eli Zuzovsky '21
Eli Zuzovsky is an Israeli-Italian writer and director working across film, TV, theater, and literature. A 2021 Rhodes Scholar, he received a bachelor’s in filmmaking and English from Harvard and a master’s in French and German from Oxford. Recently, Zuzovsky was selected for the Biennale College Cinema Italia, the Israeli Forbes “30 Under 30” list, and the Séries Mania Writers Campus. His debut novel is forthcoming from Henry Holt (Macmillan).
LGBTQ+ Artist Fellowship, 2023
Artist Sabrina Richert '20
Sabrina Richert is an artist/designer/fabricator who grew up on a small, family-owned sheep farm in Northeast Indiana and now lives and works in arts/entertainment in the NYC area. They hail from the class of 2020 and can usually be found in a theater, on set, and/or working on an animation or other art project.
Filmmaker Emily Yue '20
Emily Yue (she/her/hers) is a filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to making her own films, she works as an assistant editor and emerging editor, and is a member of the Asian American Documentary Network, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and IATSE Local 700. She is currently a 2023 Sundance Institute Documentary Contributing Editor Fellow. Some of her recent post-production credits include How to Blow Up a Pipeline (NEON) and The Rescue (National Geographic).
Filmmaker Joseph Lee ‘22
Joseph Lee is a filmmaker and director whose stories are deeply rooted in his experiences with his Korean-American heritage and his family's struggles with financial hardship and disability. His work has been shown at LAAPFF and NFFTY, and he is the grand prize winner of the Shore Scripts Short Film Competition. He has directed and developed content for clients such as Janet Yang Productions, Jubilee Media, and Hearst Media. In his free time, he writes children's books with his brother and is a competitive archer.
AAPI Artist Fellowship, 2023
Visual Artist Ava Jinying Salzman ‘23
Ava Jinying Salzman is a visual artist, writer, graphic novelist, and multidisciplinary artist from Los Angeles, California. Her lifelong passion lies in uncovering the stories that haunt us: in giving artistic form to the ghosts and monsters of our pasts, so that we might confront and embrace them. Her latest project is an original graphic novel dealing with the ghosts of a more personal history.
Filmmaker/Writer Samantha Mari Woolf ‘23
Sam Woolf is a writer and aspiring multi-hyphenate. Due to a love of folktales and her half-Japanese background, Sam is drawn to stories that connect multiple worlds and differing perspectives. This passion usually manifests as magical realist screenplays about ghosts––characters that might exist between life and death.
Writer Youmna Chamieh ‘22
Youmna Chamieh is a senior in Adams House studying Government and English. Originally from Lebanon, she grew up in Paris with her two sisters. During the fellowship year, she will work on original pieces, including a collection of short stories. Though these stories all gravitate towards Lebanon, at their core is the belief that, as Salman Rushdie puts it, “the past is a country from which we have all emigrated, whose loss is part of our common humanity.”
Harvardwood Artist Launch Fellowship, 2022-2023
Musical Theater Composer/Lyricist Julia Riew ‘22
Julia Riew is a senior in Lowell House studying Theater, Dance, Media (TDM) and Music. In 2018, Julia co-founded the Asian Student Arts Project (ASAP) and co-wrote their first production, The East Side. Her recent works include Alice’s Wonderland; Jack and the Beanstalk: A Musical Adventure which was commissioned for the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.)’s 2020 Family Musical; and Thumbelina: A Little Musical (The A.R.T. 2019 Family Musical).
