Join us to celebrate the 2025-2026 winners of the Libraries' Research and Writing Awards. There'll be refreshments and the opportunity to hear from the winners. 

Lowell Aptman Prize

Recognizing excellence in undergraduate research using sources from the Libraries’ general collections.

• First- or Second-Year Student winner: Grayson Giguere for “An Oral History of the Civil Rights Era Through an Interracial Family in Woonsocket,” nominated by Dr. Adriane Lentz-Smith (History)
• Third-Year Student winner: Annabel Tang for “The Southern University’s Responsibility to the Ground on Which It Stands: Disobedience, in Two Acts,” nominated by Dr. Andrew Nurkin (Public Policy)
• Honor Thesis Winner: Karina Lu for “Embodying the Revolution: Female Sent-Down Youth on the Yunnan Frontier, 1969-1980,” nominated by Dr. Nicole Elizabeth Barnes (History)

Chester P. Middlesworth Award

Recognizing excellence of analysis, research, and writing in the use of primary sources and rare materials held by the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

• Raahim Hashmi for “Seeing the Qur’an: Calligraphy, Power, and Transformation in the Mughal Empire,” nominated by Dr. Ellen McLarney
• Aryana Makati for “The Cost of Conviction: Feminist Business Praxis and the Archive of Rosetta Records,” nominated by Dr. Margaret (Lou) Brown

Ole R. Holsti Prize

Recognizing excellence in undergraduate research using primary sources for political science or public policy.

• Krystal Liu for “Fairy Tales and Segregation: The Junior League’s Children’s Theater as Cold War Cultural Politics in Durham, North Carolina, 1945-1984.”

Rudolph William Rosati Creative Writing Award

Recognizing outstanding creative writing by first year students and sophomores.

• Skylar Dunn for “Eulogy Club”
• Emmanuela Ejoga for “And Still, I Breathe”

The William Styron Creative Writing Award

Recognizing outstanding creative writing by juniors and seniors.

• Palak Jolly for “Pilgrimage”
• Davis Shedd for “Daddy, Daddy”