The Jeffrey Burds Fellowship Program
The Burds Fellowship Program is named in honor of Professor Jeffrey Burds. Professor Burds was a dedicated teacher and mentor. He advised dozens of undergraduate research projects and inspired many students to pursue lifelong historical research.
The program provides a group of undergraduate history students the opportunity to engage in genuine historical research by paired with Northeastern history faculty. Fellows will assist faculty with their research projects.
Burds Fellows Cohort, September 2025-December 2025
Gleb Cherevichnyy: I’m a second year History and Economics major who has always been interested in the history of Eastern Europe. The Burds Fellowship has allowed me to substantiate this interest through both learning more about the Jewish experience via the Jewish Migration Project and interacting with individuals with significant family histories. I look forward to continuing work on the project’s outreach and document collecting programs.
Maxwell Goodman: My studies at Northeastern explore the Soviet and post-Soviet landscape, tracing how power, propaganda, and identity intersect across history. As a History and International Affairs major, I’ve researched Russian active measures and hybrid warfare, the evolution and legacy of the Cheka, and Jewish partisan movements in Belarus and Poland during World War II. These projects reflect a deep curiosity about how ideology becomes lived experience; a curiosity rooted in my own Jewish-Belarusian heritage and lifelong connection to classical Slavic music through the violin. The Burds Fellowship has given me the chance to bring these threads together, examining Soviet wartime journalism and propaganda as tools of both control and survival. Through this work, I’ve come to see history not just as the study of the past, but as a dialogue between memory, identity, and endurance.
Alexandra Johnson: As a History and Political Science major with minors in International Affairs and Law & Public Policy, I love exploring how the past shapes society today. I’ve enjoyed developing my research skills through diverse projects in Northeastern’s history courses—from digital humanities StoryMaps to in-depth semester-long papers. I was drawn to the Burds Fellowship after learning about Professor Cain’s research on adolescent autonomy privacy in the 20th-century U.S., which speaks to my interests at the intersection of law, policy, and history. This opportunity has already deepened my understanding of these enduring issues and provided invaluable research experience.
Alexandra Ziegler: My name is Allie, and I’m a fourth-year History and Environmental Studies major. I’ve truly loved being a History major—it offers an experience that feels unique compared to other fields. The close relationships with professors, opportunities for meaningful discussion, and emphasis on research and writing have all been incredibly rewarding and fun. What drew me to this fellowshipis Professor Heefner, who is amazing, and the project I’m working on with her perfectly combines my two passions: studying and analyzing history through the lens of environmental impact and policy.