USC Libraries honored six exceptional pieces of student research at a reception held Tuesday, April 16, at Doheny Memorial Library. The annual award is for work completed in for-credit or independent study courses during the previous calendar year. This year, three undergraduate and three graduate prizes were given.
The first prize for undergraduate students went to Tricia Lim Castro for her capstone project, “Moving in (American) Time: The Formation of Philippine Dance Culture in the Era of Filipinization.” Castro wrote of working with USC Libraries collections: “A session led by Christal Young, the head of Leavey Library and Student Engagement, taught me that research is a conversation, and with this knowledge, I approached the book stacks as if the books on the shelf are organized to be in conversation with each other.”
Second prize went to Judy Lee’s paper, “The Power of Youth: Student Activism in the Gwangju Uprising”; and Juno Wolfe’s “Bay Area Peace Action and the Weakening of the American Left” won third prize for the undergraduates.
Emily Varley, the graduate first prize winner, submitted her thesis, “Reconstruction Right Now: Conserving Vernacular Heritage in Beaufort, South Carolina, as An Act of Reconstructing Preservation Practice.” She writes of the research process: “Not only did my access to primary sources challenge me to grow as a researcher, writer, and listener, I gained a better understanding of the variety of formats in which knowledge can be communicated and utilized for research.”
The second prize for graduate students went to Zagros Heivand’s paper, “Marked by Greed: The Hoover Redevelopment Project and USC’s Surrounding Community,” which drew on many USC Libraries’ primary source archival materials. Liane (Xinhui) Yang took third prize for “A New Way to Explain the Scarcity of Tang Dynasty Female Hu Dancing Figurines.”
The USC Libraries Research Award is generously supported by AM Digital and Johnson Rare Books & Archives