Research Excellence Prize
The Brandeis Library's Research Excellence Prize recognizes students who apply sophisticated
information literacy skills to the selection, evaluation and synthesis of sources for a research project. In addition to highlighting exemplary student scholarship, the Award serves to encourage students to engage with library resources and make use of library services. Each prize is for $250.
The Library’s Research Excellence Prizes include:
-
An award for community-engaged research, offered in partnership with the Samuels ’63 Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation (COMPACT). Community engaged research typically addresses the questions, issues, and/or needs of a community partner — whether at the local, state, regional, national, or global level.
- An award for student research related to racism and anti-racism. This award is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Dissertations are not eligible for this award.
- An award for climate change-related research. This award is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Dissertations are not eligible for this award.
- An award for research completed in a University Writing Seminar (UWS).
- An award for a research paper or project completed by an undergraduate student outside of UWS
- An award for a research paper or project completed by a graduate student. Dissertations are not eligible for this award.
- An award for research which makes use of materials in the Brandeis University Archives & Special Collections. This award is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Dissertations are not eligible for this award.
- An award for a digital research project. For a digital project, a student might present their research through data visualization, mapping, or multi-media. A digital project could be completed alongside a research paper or the project may be independent of a research paper.
Award Requirements
To be eligible to win a Research Excellence Prize, applicants must be current Brandeis University students. We will accept work that was produced between May 17, 2022, and May 16, 2023.
Types of Research Considered
In addition to research papers, students may submit other types of research projects that make use of library resources and services and demonstrate research skills. These projects can be from any academic discipline and might include:
- Literature reviews
- Web pages displaying research findings
- Audiovisual materials, such as videos
- Posters
- Creative writing assignments
Team projects are eligible for the award. If a team project is selected, the award will be split evenly among team members.
We are excited to be working with COMPACT to offer a new award for community-engaged research this year! Community-engaged research submissions may include a research paper from a community engaged project, a grant application or materials produced for a community partner, such as a program evaluation, report, or web site. If you’ve completed community-engaged research in a different format, please let us know and we’ll talk through options. We’d like to include as many different types of community engaged student research as possible.
Team Projects
Team projects are eligible for the award. If a team project is selected, the award will be split evenly among team members.
Application
To have their work considered for the Research Excellence Prize, students are asked to submit an online application. Students will be asked to upload their research project and to write a research process essay as part of the application.
The research process essay should be between 500-750 words. Please try to address the following questions:
- Which specific library sources did you consult and why? (For example, the library catalog, WorldCat, an archival collection, specific library databases, etc.)
- Did you use library services, such as Research Help, Interlibrary Loan, University Archives & Special Collections, or library instruction? Please give details about your experience with these services. How did using them contribute to your research?
- From searches with zero results to too much information and no way to refine them, or finding the perfect thing that was unavailable, we all encounter stumbling blocks when we research. What stumbling blocks did you encounter and how did you overcome them?
- How did you evaluate the quality of the sources you discovered during the research process? How did you decide which sources to use and which to discard?
- How has your approach to doing research changed as a result of undertaking this project?
For papers written in a language other than English, students can submit a one-page summary of the paper, written in English.
For digital projects with no bibliography, students are asked to include a list of the sources they used in their research process essay.
Students will also need a recommendation from the instructor who taught the course for which the student completed the research project or from a faculty member who served as an advisor to the research project.
Process for Selecting Award Winners
Please view our Library Evaluation Rubric below and Faculty Evaluation form for details about how submissions will be reviewed
Wherever possible, submissions will be anonymized prior to the review process. In the case of digital projects, anonymization may not be possible.
Reviewers for the 2023 prizes will include library staff members, as well as Megan Ross, Associate Director of Samuels Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation (COMPACT), and Mary Fischer, Associate Director of Sustainability Programs.
Expand All
Research Strategy
Research Process
Library Services
- Does not describe use of library services. (1 point)
- Shows some use of library services (such as interlibrary loan, University Archives & Special Collections, research help, and instruction). (2 points)
- Describes use of multiple library services (such as the catalog, OneSearch, databases, interlibrary loan, University Archives & Special Collections, research help, instruction, meeting with a library staff member, data analysis consultation). (3 points)
Sources Used
Evaluation of Sources
- Demonstrates some evaluation of sources. (1 point)
- Demonstrates that sources have been evaluated for quality and relevance. (2 points)
- Demonstrates critical reflection of source quality and relevance. Considers objectivity, authority, currency, and coverage. (3 points)
Citations
- Submission with a bibliography: Not all sources are cited. (1 point)
Digital project with no bibliography (formal citations are not necessary, but students submitting digital projects with no bibliography are asked to include a list of the sources they used in their research process essay): No attribution of sources in the research process essay or digital project. (1 point)
- Submission with a bibliography: Cites sources, with some mistakes, missing information, and/or inconsistencies. (2 points)
Digital project with no bibliography: Attributes sources in research process essay or within digital project. (2 points)
- Submission with a bibliography: Accurately cites all sources using a consistent style. (3 points)
Digital project with no bibliography: Attributes sources in research process essay or within digital project, with context on use, influence, or how the sources shaped the project. (3 points)
Adapted from Tufts University’s Research Award rubric.
Library Research Award Recipients
Expand All
- Prize for community-engaged research, offered in partnership with the Samuels ’63 Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation (COMPACT):
- Elizabeth Simms, Rafael Abrahams, Joseph Weisberg, Wayland Library: 175 Years
- Prize for research related to racism and anti-racism:
- Prize for climate change-related research:
- Armen Youssoufian, Dalen Weathersby, Dante Culmone-Durso, Ellie Greene, Fijare Plous, Temperate Forest - How Water-Related Climate Variables Impact Temperate Species & Habitats
- Prize for research completed in a University Writing Seminar (UWS):
- Grace Danqing Yang, Cognitive Dissonance, Social Psychology, and Unit 731
- Allison Gentry, The American Imagination and the Space Age: How Pop Culture Took Man to the Moon
- Marianna Tsolias, Summer of Love: An Examination of Overambitious Solutions to Societal Injustices
- Prize for research paper or project completed by an undergraduate student outside of UWS:
- Prize for research paper or project completed by a graduate student:
- Prize for research which makes use of materials in the Brandeis University Archives & Special Collections:
- Prize for digital research project:
- Prize for research which makes use of materials in the Brandeis University Archives & Special Collections:
- Prize for research which contributes to understandings of racism and anti-racism:
- Rebekah Kristal, Black Intellectuality: Challenging Conventions of Belonging in STEM
- Prize for graduate student research:
- Joseph Weisberg, As It Is Said: A Proposal to Use the WPA Interviews to Locate a Vernacular History of African American-Jewish Encounters in the Nineteenth-Century South
- Peizhao Li, Achieving Fairness at No Utility Cost via Data Reweighing
- Prize for research conducted in a University Writing Seminar:
- Caelen Hilty, On Trial: Surveillance as Epidermalization and the Ahmaud Arbery Case
- Bridget Kennedy, Pathologizing Bias: Racial Disparities in The Diagnosis of Schizophrenia
- Prize for research conducted by an undergraduate outside of UWS:
- Prize for a digital research project:
- Joshua Aldwinkle Povey, Boston's response to the AIDS crisis
- Brianna Lackwood, Imagining Black Food Justice Through a Black Femme Literary Hermeneutic, Prize for research which contributes to understandings of racism and anti-racism
- Rafael Abrahams, “Intimate With the Stars and the Trees”: Black Conservationism in the Progressive Era, Prize for graduate student research
- Logan Shanks, The Quest for Black Social Mobility and the Role of Black Women Leadership, Prize for research which makes use of materials in the Brandeis University Archives & Special Collections.
- Lucca Raabe, “Rational” Racism: How the Math Department at Brandeis Functions to Reproduce Racial Inequality, Prize for research which makes use of materials in the Brandeis University Archives & Special Collections.
- Logan Shanks, ‘Us had the kind of love couldn’t be improved’: An Exploration of Black Relationships in The Color Purple, Prize for research conducted in a University Writing Seminar
- Roshni Ray, Women’s Interpersonal Friendships: Grassroots to Impactful Feminist Movements, Prize for research conducted in a University Writing Seminar
- Jocelyn Gould, A ‘Pandemic Effect’? Women’s Candidate Emergence Amid the COVID-19 Crisis, Prize for research conducted by an undergraduate outside of UWS
- Caroline Greaney, The Palantír Project: Exploring Tolkien Criticism Through Distant Reading, 1970–Present, Prize for a Digital Research Project
-
Nakul Srinivas (Research completed in a University Writing Seminar), “Pugnacious Principals and Clever Kids: Child Dominance in Matilda and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”
-
Benjamin Schwartz (Research completed in a University Writing Seminar), “Is the Book of Job Tragic?”
-
Lucia Pugh-Sellers (Research using materials from University Archives & Special Collections), “Coalition Building, Allyship, and Solidarity: Exploring Different Realizations of Success Through the Brandeis Ford Hall Movements”
-
Anne Kat Alexander (Research completed by an undergraduate student outside of the University Writing Seminar), “The Emotional Nadir in English Renaissance Poetry”
-
Ezra Cohen (Research completed by an undergraduate student outside of the University Writing Seminar), “Shaul Shochet’s Tiferet Yedidya: Towards an Understanding of Mid-American Jewry in the Early Twentieth Century”
-
Cynthia Cheloff (Research completed by an undergraduate student outside of the University Writing Seminar), “A Voice of Their Own: A study on the strategic development of Anglo-Jewry’s political strategies and rhetoric concerning immigration policy, 1902-1906.”