Undergraduate Prize for Excellence in Library Research

This annual prize recognizes undergraduate students who demonstrate exceptional sophistication and originality in research initiatives.

In partnership with the Office of the Dean of the College, the Brown University Library sponsors the Undergraduate Research Prize. The purpose of the prize is to recognize excellence in undergraduate research projects that make creative and extensive use of the Brown University Library's collections, including, but not limited to, print resources, databases, primary resources, and materials in all media. The project may take the form of a traditional paper, a database, a website, or other digital project.

Up to two prizes of $750 each may be given. Prize recipients will be honored at a Library reception and will be asked to give a short presentation on their research projects.

Prize-winning projects will be honored on the Brown University Library website and added to the Brown University Archives.

Eligibility

Applicants must be current full-time students working toward a Brown University undergraduate degree. Eligible projects include any paper or project submitted by an individual for a Brown class in the 2023 calendar year.

Application

Applications for the 2024 Undergraduate Prize for Excellence in Library Research are now open.

Applications should include the project itself, a statement on your research process (500 - 750 words), a list of sources used, and a letter of support from the faculty member who taught your class.

The letter of support should include information about the course and context in which the paper or project was written; the student's research process; the quality and unique contribution of the work; and anything else that will help the prize committee assess the significance of the work as a product of undergraduate research.

Submit your application materials via the online form.

Applications are due April 5, 2024. Winning projects will be announced in late April.

2021 Winning Projects

Cal Turner '21

2021 Undergraduate Research Prize winner Cal Turner '21

Cal Turner's paper, "Finance and the Other in the Merchant of Venice," written for Professor Connie Scozzaro's ENGL1361P Shakespeare's Girls, pulled together a variety of research threads to explore the interactions between the economics of early capitalism and the language of exchange in Shakespeare's play. Contributing to Cal’s interest in the topic was the Pembroke seminar Narrating Debt, on theoretical frameworks for understanding the role of finance in literature, which he was also taking.

The paper is a wide-ranging and well researched analysis, based on primary and secondary sources that explain and support one another. Cal was able to discuss the rise of finance and its justification for members of the dominant culture as lottery and fortune, and its negative role as debt and usury, when practiced by racial others and foreigners. His research ultimately connects the financial language of Shakespeare's play to the financing of colonial expansion in the Americas.

Olivia Golubowski '23

2021 Undergraduate Research Prize winner Olivia Golubowski '23

Olivia Golubowski's paper, "Neanderthal Dietary Reconstruction Via Analysis of Microremains in Dental Calculus," written for Zachary Dunsett's ARCH1774 Microarchaeology, details a research proposal to investigate Neanderthal dental calculus for food microremains, so as to support or revise theories about the Neanderthal diet.

In order to develop her proposal, Olivia demonstrated thoughtful and creative use of Library resources: She surveyed different topics in a general way. After she identified a domain of interest, she grounded her hypothesis and methodology by researching Homo Neanderthalensis and the relevant scholarship, then reading dental journals, to learn about the study of dentition and, specifically, dental calculus. She then identified locations and condition of Neanderthal skulls to figure out where she would perform the analysis.

2020 Winning Projects

Abby Wells '21

2020 Undergraduate Research Prize winner Abby Wells '21

Abby Wells' paper, "दे वि!मा#हा#त्म्य, Δούργα Μεταφρασθεῖσα ἐκ τοῦ Βραχμάνικου, and Devimahatmyam, Markandeyi Purani Sectio Edidit Latinam Interpretationem: A Comparative Analysis of Greek and Latin Translations of the Devīmāhātmya," compares translations of the Devīmāhātmya, a Hindu religious text, to offer a unique analysis of grammar, content, and interpretation across three languages, including Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit.

Wells made creative and extensive use of the Library’s collection by locating the Greek and Latin translations of the Devīmāhātmya in the John Hay Library and Google Books, respectively. The award committee was especially impressed by the project's use of materials made available through the John Hay Library, Google Books, and the Hathi Trust. This project truly spans the full use of library holdings and digital collections available within and beyond Brown University.

Sicheng Luo '20

2020 Undergraduate Research Prize winner Sicheng Luo '20

Sicheng Luo was selected for her fascinating project, "The Symbol of the Pineapple Used for Clocks," which explores the symbolism of pineapples in art and artifacts based on a mutual misunderstanding between China and the West. The project leaned heavily on a variety of Library resources and in-depth research consultations with Brown librarians.

Luo’s project, which was initially inspired by a popular television show in China called "National Treasures," offers the reader an intensive explanation of the history of the pineapple symbol found on a clock made in the Qing Dynasty in China, which is currently on reserve in the Imperial Museum in Beijing.

Luo credits the availability of artist books, scanners, and in-person research consultations at the Library as the foundation of this incredible art history project.

2019 Winning Projects

Joukowsky Family University Librarian Joseph Meisel and 2019 Undergraduate Research Prize winner Maya Omori '19

Maya Omori '19 created "Hidden Portraits at Brown," a Brown-focused walking tour for the statewide Rhode Tour mobile app for Professor Holly Shaffer's The Art of Portraiture: Pre-Histories of the Selfie (HIAA 1720) and for a subsequent independent study the following semester. Maya's project examines overlooked or underrepresented people associated with Brown, and looks closer at some of Brown's famous landmarks and traditions. Maya incorporated interviews with Brown faculty, curators, and staff with extensive research using our online databases and primary sources. Maya is concentrating in Cognitive Neuroscience.

Joukowsky Family University Librarian Joseph Meisel and 2019 Undergraduate Research Prize winner Gabriela Gil '20

Using primary sources from the Hay, as well as numerous secondary sources from Brown's physical and online collections, Gabriela Gil '20 wrote a 20-page research paper, "First Aid in South African Gold Mines," which explored the rationale for European mining corporations to create first aid programs specific to black laborers. For the project, Gabriela provided an in-depth discussion of a first aid manual (“Ikusiza Aba Limele”) in order to better understand how mining officials understood the roles and responsibilities in the provision of first aid in these settings, and evaluated the significance of these attitudes and policies for black labor. Gabriela is a Health and Human Biology concentrator; she created this project for Jennifer Johnson's Medicine and Public Health in Africa course (HIST 1960Q).

2018 Winning Project

The winner of the 2018 Undergraduate Prize for Excellence in Library Research was Charlie Steinman ’20, concentrating in history and medieval studies.

Charlie submitted a paper entitled, “’Martin Luther’s whore more than a pope’: Annotation, Disgust, and Materiality in the Reformation Reception of the Pope Joan Myth.” The paper was written for History 1964A: “Age of Impostors: Fraud, Identity, and the Self in Early Modern Europe,” taught by Professor Tara Nummedal.

Charlie’s paper examined the myth of Pope Joan as it was received in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation Europe, especially as revealed in printed books of the period. He had discovered that the image of Pope Joan in Brown’s copy of the Nuremburg Chronicle was scratched out, and further searching revealed many copies of this and other printed chronicles with similar effacements, sometimes with marginal notes. He determined that these effacements were the work of Catholic readers, who were responding to Protestant uses of the Pope Joan myth to discredit the papacy and its purported apostolic succession. Catholic readers wished to show that Pope Joan did not exist and sought to remove her from the histories.

2017 Winning Project

The winner of the 2017 Undergraduate Prize for Excellence in Library Research was Vaughn Campbell ’18, an International Relations Concentrator.

Vaughn Campbell ’18

Vaughn submitted a paper entitled, “Brown ­in­ China: Brown’s Role in the American Missionary Project of the Early Twentieth Century,” written in the spring of 2016 for Naoko Shibusawa’s course “HIST1554: History of American Empire.” The paper describes a collaboration between Brown University and Shanghai College in 1920. Vaughn says:

I did the bulk of my research in the Hay Archives, paging through thick files of personal articles, searching for documents relating to these individuals’ time and ambitions in China. I supplemented this with both broad contemporary accounts and secondary historical works found in the stacks of the Rock or through the Library’s online resources. Having never been able to work in the Hay before, or really with any archival resources, I thoroughly enjoyed having such a close connection to the original, 100-­year-­old documents of these three professors, as well as working with the Hay librarians to discover and locate these rare documents.

Professor Shibusawa wrote, “What I appreciated about Vaughn’s paper is that every year when I lecture on Chinese student missionaries to China, I ask the 80-120 students in the class, ‘Does anybody want to research what Brown students were doing?’ Nobody took me up on it except Vaughn when he did so last year.”

2016 Winning Projects

Rachel Gold '19 wrote a paper on “The Education of John Hay,” for which she used a wide variety of contemporary sources, including John Hay’s own letters and papers, archival records, and other students’ diaries to describe John Hay’s experience at Brown and in Providence. She worked her way into these sources by first reading, chronologically, a series of biographies of Hay from 1905 through 2014. The result is an evocative portrait of the Midwesterner who found himself at Brown University in 1855.

Halley McArn '19 created a website that explores the issue of presidential pardons, with special reference to pardons issued by Lincoln during the Civil War, as well as a discussion of the issue in the Obama presidency. The website begins with the origins of the presidential pardon, then proceeds to Lincoln’s pardons and the special issues he had to consider, especially in the midst of a war that had torn the country apart. It ends with an overview of the presidential pardon up to and including Obama, with special reference to the context of the War on Drugs and mass incarceration, issues raised by this year’s First Readings choice: Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

2015 Winning Project

Read "A Providence Affair" (PDF) by Beatrice Senocak ’15, the 2015 Undergraduate Prize Winner.

Beatrice Senocak ’15 receives the 2015 Undergraduate Prize for Excellence in Library Research

2014 Winning Projects

Read "Soldiers of Solidarity: The Boston Committee for Health Rights in Central America" (PDF), by Leah Jones '17, and "Clocks and Empire: an Indian Case Study" (PDF), by Richard Salamé '16, the 2014 UGRA Prize Winners.

Leah Jones ’17 and Richard Salamé ’16 receive the 2014 Library Innovation Prize