This year’s Varg-Sullivan Endowed Graduate Award winners are Niloufar Fallahfar, a Spring 2026 MFA in Studio Art graduate, who is the 2026 Outstanding Achievement in the Arts recipient, and Jonah Branding, a graduate student pursuing a dual Ph.D. in Philosophy and Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, was named the 2026 Outstanding Achievement in Letters recipient.
The Varg-Sullivan Endowed Graduate Awards, presented by Michigan State University’s College of Arts & Letters, were established in honor of Paul Varg and Richard Sullivan, former Deans of the College of Arts & Letters who dedicated their professional lives to excellence in the college. Recipients are selected based on the best performance, exhibition, or presentation at a national or international event, or the best-published article.
Niloufar Fallahfar
An Iranian artist, Fallahfar was nominated for the Varg-Sullivan Endowed Graduate Award by Alisa Henriquez, Professor in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design, in recognition of her research-driven studio practice and participation in two highly competitive exhibitions during the past year: ArtPrize 2025 and the 2026 Miami University Young Painters Competition.
“She is also among the most professionally active graduate students I have worked with in more than 30 years of teaching,” Henriquez wrote in her nomination letter. “Her level of initiative, productivity, and sustained engagement with the broader field far exceeds what is typically expected at the graduate level.”
Fallahfar’s sculptural painting, A Soft Collapse of a Narrative, was selected for ArtPrize 2025, an international competition held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in which approximately 1,100 artists representing 39 U.S. states and 18 countries presented work across 155 venues throughout the city. Fallahfar’s sculptural painting was exhibited in the main lobby of DeVos Place Convention Center, a prominent venue known for presenting conceptually ambitious, large-scale installations.
“She is also among the most professionally active graduate students I have worked with in more than 30 years of teaching. Her level of initiative, productivity, and sustained engagement with the broader field far exceeds what is typically expected at the graduate level.”
Alisa Henriquez, Professor
Fallahfar received three notable ArtPrize distinctions: a $2,000 Artist Seed Grant for emerging and international artists; the Asian Art Award, sponsored by the West Michigan Asian American Association in partnership with the City of Grand Rapids, recognizing work that advances Asian cultural perspectives within contemporary art and public discourse; and selection as a Top 20 Finalist in the City Center District.
Fallahfar’s work also was selected for inclusion in the 2026 Miami University Young Painters Competition, a nationally juried competition that recognizes emerging painters whose work demonstrates exceptional conceptual rigor and disciplinary innovation. She was selected as one of nine finalists nationwide, with two works chosen for consideration for the exhibition’s top honor, the $10,000 William and Dorothy Yeck Award. The exhibition was juried by Saya Woolfalk, an internationally recognized artist whose practice spans painting, installation, performance, and speculative cultural narratives.
“As an Iranian artist working amid ongoing political upheaval and repression in her home country, Ms. Fallahfar’s achievements carry particular significance,” Henriquez wrote. “She has pursued her practice with remarkable focus and resilience, maintaining an ambitious exhibition record and achieving national recognition while navigating the personal and cultural challenges that accompany displacement and uncertainty. Her ability to sustain a rigorous, research-driven practice under these conditions speaks to both her intellectual seriousness and her exceptional commitment to her field.”
Jonah Branding
Branding plans to defend his dissertation in Spring 2027. He received a Graduate Certificate in Computational Modeling from MSU in 2025. He was nominated for the Varg-Sullivan Endowed Graduate Award by Robyn Bluhm, Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Lyman Briggs College, for his paper “Can a marker approach exclude?” published in October 2025 in Biology and Philosophy, a top-ranked journal in the philosophy of science and the most influential venue for work in philosophy of biology.
Branding’s paper addresses a central problem in animal research and the philosophy and science of consciousness: whether the absence of behavioral or neural markers of consciousness in a given organism is sufficient evidence that the organism is not conscious.
“The paper combines a thorough knowledge of the relevant philosophical and scientific literature with a novel and insightful take on a central disagreement in research on animal consciousness,” Bluhm wrote in her nomination letter. “It is extremely well-written and well-argued, and a pleasure to read. I learned a lot from it and think it is perhaps the best paper by a graduate student that I have read.”
Branding’s paper has already attracted significant attention. It has been cited in a preprint posted online by another philosopher and, according to statistics on the journal’s website, has been viewed or downloaded more than 2,000 times so far, considerably more than other articles published in the journal during the same period.
“The paper combines a thorough knowledge of the relevant philosophical and scientific literature with a novel and insightful take on a central disagreement in research on animal consciousness…I learned a lot from it and think it is perhaps the best paper by a graduate student that I have read.”
Robyn Bluhm, Professor
“It is an outstanding paper that will be an important contribution to the interdisciplinary literature in philosophy and biology,” Bluhm wrote. “It is also exemplary of Jonah’s careful and original approach to philosophical work and his ability to combine scientific and philosophical perspectives in his research.”
Prior to publishing “Can a marker approach exclude?” Branding published a peer-reviewed article, “Recapitulation, Heredity, and Freud’s View of Human Nature,” in the Journal of the History of Biology. He also has presented at conferences including the American Philosophical Association Central Division Conference and the York University Graduate Conference on Animal Minds.
In summer 2025, he received an Engaged Philosophy Internship Program Fellowship from the Department of Philosophy to work on a project on theoretical issues in cell taxonomy at the University of Bordeaux.
