Ph.D Student, Jessica Bissett Perea, was selected for a UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship beginning in fall 2011. Jessica Bissett Perea is one of only15 students selected for this highly competitive fellowship program.

"The University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program was established in 1984 to encourage outstanding women and minority Ph.D. recipients to pursue academic careers at the University of California. The current program offers postdoctoral research fellowships, faculty mentoring, and eligibility for a hiring incentive to outstanding scholars in all fields whose research, teaching, and service will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity at the University of California."

Jessica Bissett Perea will be hosted by UC Berkeley's Department of Music with Dr. Jocelyne Guilbault as her mentor, and will be able to focus on turning her dissertation research on the politics of Inuit musical modernities into a book.

Ms. Bissett Perea is a first-generation college graduate and is currently a doctoral candidate in musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. An enrolled citizen of the Knik Tribe, she specializes in North American music history from 1850 to present day, with a focus on traditional and contemporary Alaska Native song and dance, modern jazz cultures, and American traditional musics (including folk, popular, and classical).