The American Bar Foundation (ABF) has awarded doctoral fellowships to three exceptional scholars. Selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants, these scholars were chosen for their impressive empirical and interdisciplinary research proposals in law and social science and will begin their roles on September 1.
The research of these doctoral fellows focuses on a variety of subjects connected to the ABF’s research portfolios. This year’s incoming fellows have studied, taught, and conducted research at colleges, universities, and research institutes across the country and around the world. They bring a wide range of valuable perspectives to the ABF’s collaborative research community.
The ABF’s incoming doctoral fellows are Ana Vasilj, Alisher Juzgenbayev, and Daniela Juarez.
For over thirty years, the ABF has offered doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships to foster the next generation of scholars in law, social science, and higher education. These fellowships offer the opportunity to engage with a rigorous, engaged, interdisciplinary community of scholars, to gain feedback on scholarly and professional projects in workshop settings, and to utilize the ABF’s resources toward their academic goals.
Fellows receive valuable mentorship from ABF researchers, a stipend to support living expenses while they complete their dissertation projects, and additional support for research expenses. Former fellows have built on their experiences at the ABF by moving on to promising and exciting careers. Ninety-two percent of fellows from 2008 to 2020 have been appointed to tenure track positions at universities; others have found success as legal professionals, applied researchers, and in other roles.
These fellowships are possible thanks to the support of the Law & Society Association, the AccessLex Institute, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago.
Meet the 2026 Doctoral Fellows:
Ana Vasilj is an ABF/University of Chicago Doctoral Fellow in Law and Social Science. Vasilj is a JD candidate and a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Chicago. Her research sits at the intersection of taxation, public economics, and law. She develops new methods to study how governments can design fairer, less distortionary tax systems—examining questions such as whether food and other essentials should be relatively subsidized and how the taxation of businesses shapes the choices firms make. Her research is forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review. She holds a BA in Economics from the University of Cambridge.
Alisher Juzgenbayev is an ABF/Northwestern University Doctoral Fellow in Law & Social Science. Juzgenbayev is a PhD candidate in Political Science and a JD candidate at Northwestern University. His research focuses on administrative justice in nondemocratic regimes, with broader interests in comparative courts, post-Soviet politics, and empirical legal research. His work has been published in Journal of Law and Courts and Constitutional Studies. Juzgenbayev is a recipient of the Northwestern University Presidential Fellowship and the Buffett Institute International Dissertation Research Travel Award. He holds an MA from Northwestern University and a BA, summa cum laude, from Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan.
Daniela Juarez is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Chicago. Her research examines how higher education institutions respond to attacks on diversity initiatives, the process of becoming compliant with anti-DEI policies, and the effects of these changes on institutional members. Her dissertation, “Becoming Compliant: Organizational Responses to Anti-DEI Attacks on Higher Education Institutions,” analyzes organizational responses to legislation in Texas, Utah, and Illinois using interviews, public records, and archival materials. She holds degrees from the University of Chicago, the University of Texas at Dallas, and Tyler Junior College.