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Philosophy Ph.D. Candidate Wins Newcombe Fellowship

Migdalia Arcila-Valenzuela

July 14, 2025

By Katya Hrichak

Migdalia Arcila-Valenzuela, a doctoral candidate in philosophy, has been selected as a recipient of the Robert M. Adams – Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship in Philosophy.

Administered by the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, Arcila-Valenzuela is one of 20 recipients of Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships for the 2025-26 academic year, selected from nearly 600 applicants.

Arcila-Valenzuela is studying how praise and pride reflect the values a given society embraces and thus serve both aims of liberation and oppression in her dissertation, titled, “Praise, Pride, and Pedestals: The Ethics and Moral Psychology of Black and Indigenous Movements in Colombia.”

“Being a Robert M. Adams – Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellow gives me the opportunity to dedicate the necessary time to write a dissertation that can enrich discussions in ethics and moral psychology, a growing discipline that can benefit from an active engagement with the concrete social realities and intellectual traditions from Latin America,” said Arcila-Valenzuela.

Coming from Colombia, this research—and its conclusions—is of personal interest.

“As a scholar from the Global South and as a philosopher specializing in ethics, moral psychology, and Latin American philosophy, I aim to contribute to the theoretical understanding of the motivations behind social movements in the Global South,” she said.

Founded in 1981, the Newcombe Fellowship was established to provide funding to Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences writing ethically focused dissertations at American institutions to allow for 12 months of full-time dissertation writing.

“The Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship will allow me to become part of a vibrant community of scholars committed to advancing new research in ethics, morality, and values across a wide range of disciplines,” said Arcila-Valenzuela. “It offers me the opportunity to go beyond the methodological boundaries of philosophy, opening up new possibilities to enrich my research and connect with an international network of scholars.”