Rennebohm Fellowship

On the evening of June 1, 2012, Boston College Lynch School of Education graduate student Kelsey Rennebohm was killed in an accident while riding her bicycle on Huntington Ave. in Boston.

Kelsey was affiliated with the Center, working on its Migration and Human Rights Project in Zacualpa, Guatemala, and was to travel to Guatemala for the project. In 2020, an article, "Maya K’iche’ Families and Intergenerational Migration Within and Across Borders: An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study," which made use her work was published in the journal Community Psychology in Global Perspective.  The article may be read here.

Beloved by her friends, classmates and professors, Kelsey was remembered on the BC campus in a Walk for Kelsey on June 4 and in a Memorial Service held on campus at St William's Chapel on Thursday, June 28, 2012. A ghost bike was installed on Huntington Avenue and a ride organized in her memory on June 7, 2012.

In her memory, the Center has established the Kelsey A. Rennebohm Memorial Fellowship.  This fellowship is awarded to a Boston College student (undergraduate or graduate) whose proposed research or activist scholarship is at the interface of psychology, mental health, gender, social justice, and human rights.  The fellow subsequently gives a presentation at the university about their work and findings in the following academic year.

To donate to the fellowship fund, please send a check made out to Boston College, and in the memo "CHRIJ/Honoring Kelsey Rennebohm," to:

Timothy Karcz/CHRIJ
Stokes Hall N413
Boston College
140 Commonwealth Ave
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

For more information on the fellowship, contact Prof. Brinton Lykes at lykes@bc.edu or Timothy Karcz at timothy.karcz@bc.edu.