Dalya Koller was awarded an open study/Research Fulbright fellowship to pursue "Walt Whitman and the Bible: The Song of Songs in Leaves of Grass," a project that explores the intertextual relationship between the Song of Songs and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. She will examine how Whitman’s poetics both draw on and transform the biblical love poem’s language, imagery, and theology, while also considering broader questions about what it means to engage with a text through translation. She will work under the mentorship of Dara Barnat at Tel Aviv University and Carra Glatt at Bar-Ilan University.

Dalya received her BA from Brandeis University in 2025, where she studied Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. During her undergraduate career, she conducted independent research and completed an honors thesis on modern English translations of the Song of Songs. She also spent a semester at the University of Montpellier studying French language and literature\ and studied Arabic throughout her time at Brandeis.