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Awards in the Humanities and Social Sciences

W&M Recipients

2024
Graduate Studies Advisory Board Award for Excellence
  • Jenny Merriman, History
    Advisor: Dr. Nick Popper
    Colonial News, German Words: How Translated News Stoked the Anxieties of German Settlers in Early America
 Award for Excellence: 
  • Rebekah Toussaint, History
    Advisor: Dr. Adrienne Petty
    Massive Resistance and the Color of Memory: Racial Histories of Public-School Desegregation in Norfolk, Virginia
Honorable Mention, Award for Excellence:
  • Jessica Brabble, History
    Advisor: Dr. Melvin Ely
    From Enemies to Friends: Prisoner of War Camps in Eastern North Carolina, 1943-1946
2023
Graduate Studies Advisory Board Award for Excellence
  • Olanrewaju Lasisi, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Neil Norman
    Written in Sherds, Carved by Pavements: Interpreting the Multiplex Functions of Pavements
 Award for Excellence: 
  • Rachel Rosengarten Hunnicut, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Charles McGovern
    Cosmic Collectivism: Upton Sinclair’s Psychic Imaginary in the Lanny Budd Series
Honorable Mention, Award for Excellence:
  • Marie Pellissier, History
    Advisor: Dr. Karin Wulf
    Cooking the Books: The Williamsburg Art of Cookery, Authenticity, and Accuracy at Colonial Williamsburg
2020
Interdisciplinary Award for Excellence in Research
  • Justin Estreicher, History
    Advisor: Dr. Andrew Fisher
    "Unoccupied and of a Valuable Kind": The Georgia Gold Rush and Manufactured Cherokee Savagery
Graduate Studies Advisory Board Award for Excellence
  • Tomos Evans, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Neil Norman
    What Civilizations do the Forests Conceal? Prospects of Laser Scanning in Surveying Archaeological Landscapes in Nigeria 
 Award for Excellence: 
  • Alexis Ohman, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Kahn
    Rations and Recreation: Comparative Zooarchaeology at Betty’s Hope Plantation and Shirley Heights Fort in Antigua, WI
Honorable Mention:
  • Jennifer Motter, History
    Advisor: Dr. Karin Wulf
    The Role of Knowledge in Commodification: Salt Production in the Early Modern Dutch Atlantic
2019
Interdisciplinary Award for Excellence in Research
  • David Marquis, History
    Advisor: Dr. Cindy Hahamovitch
    Dynamite: Southern Violence and the Transformation of the Piney Woods
Graduate Studies Advisory Board Award for Excellence
  • Alexandra Macdonald, History
     Advisor: Dr. Nicholas Popper
    “The Shop on the Corner of Wing’s Lane”: Retail Spaces in Colonial Boston
 Award for Excellence: 
  • Marie Pellissier, History
    Advisor: Dr. Karin Wulf
    “Why We Need the Ballot”: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and Local Involvement in the Fight for for Woman Suffrage, 1898-1920 
Honorable Mention:
  • Alexis Ohman, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Kahn
    Making Their Mark: Ceramics and Soldier Identity in the 19th-century Caribbean
2018
Interdisciplinary Award for Excellence in Research
  • David De La Mater, Biology
    Advisor: Dr. Harmony Dalgleish
    Range-wide variation in common milkweed traits and the effect of food source on larvae of the monarch butterfly
Graduate Studies Advisory Board Award for Excellence
  • Holly Gruntner, History
     Advisor: Dr. Karin  Wulf
    "Some People of Skil and Curiousity:" Botany and the Early American Family
 Award for Excellence: 
  • Anne Powell, History
    Advisor: Dr. Karin Wulf
    "Miss Rebecca Story's Book": A Portal to a Boundless World
 Honorable Mentions:
  • Alexis Ohman, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Kahn
    Mingling on the Table: Chinese Foodways in the Post-Emancipation Caribbean
  • Kara Newman, Public Policy
    Advisor: Dr. Elaine McBeth
    Aid Shocks and Immigration to the United States
2017
Interdisciplinary Awards for Excellence in Research
  • Ananda Menon, Biology
    Advisor: Dr. John Swaddle
    The Effect of Mercury Pollution on Reproductive Function
    in the Zebra Finch
  • Summer Moore, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Kahn
    Redesigning the Everyday: Household Spatial Organization and Domestic Practice at Nineteenth-Century Miloli‘i, Hawai‘i
Graduate Studies Advisory Board Award for Excellence
  • David Ward, History
     Advisor: Dr. Paul Mapp
    Continental Army: Leadership School for the early Republic
 Award for Excellence: 
  • Rebecca Capobianco, History
    Advisor: Dr. Hannah Rosen
    “In the Bosom of the Storied Blue Ridge Mountains:” Contesting the Future of American Culture in Shenandoah National Park, 1924-1936
 Honorable Mentions:
  • Jenna Carlson Dietmeier, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Neil Norman
    Knackered Nags and Mislaid Mounts: The Scarcity of Equine Remains in 18th-Century Faunal Assemblages
  • Olanrewaju Lasisi, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Neil Norman
    A Stratigraphic Look at the History of Medieval Life: Perspectives from Recent Investigations
    at Yemoo Grove
  • James J. Rick, History
    Advisor: Dr. Charles McGovern
    "Masters of Light and Flight: The Spectacle of Invention in U.S. Popular Culture, 1876-1920."
2016
Market Access International, Inc. Award: 
  • Summer Moore, Anthropology
    William & Mary, Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Kahn
    Fond of Fine Linnen Cloth”:Cloth Fragments from a 19th-Century Hawaiian Community on Kaua’i Island, Hawai’i
 Award for Excellence: 
  • Renee M. Kingan, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Hermine Pinson
    Pushing Back: Jayne Cortez and Unesco's War on War
  • Nicole M. Penn,History
    Advisor: Dr. Christopher Grasso
    French "Idolators," British "Heretics": The Seven Years' War in North America as a Religious Conflict
 William & Mary Honorable Mention:
  • Janine Y. Boldt, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Susan Webster
    Family Matters: Portraiture and Genealogical Narratives in Colonial Virginia
2015
Market Access International, Inc. Award: 
  • Eve Bourbeau-Allard, History
    William & Mary, Advisor: Dr. Karin Wulf
    A Widow's Purview: A Microhistory of Gender and Family Relations in the 18th-Century Virginia Backcountry
 Award for Excellence: 
  • Janine Boldt, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Alan Braddock
    Identification of Organic Pigments in Transatlantic 18th C. Oil Paintings Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) Spectroscopy
Honorable Mention:
  • Jenna Carlson, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Neil Norman
    The Psychometric Properties of the Assessment of Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behavioral Intentions Scale (AABBIS)
  • Ed Hunt, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Charles McGovern
    Model-Based Storage Tiering for Smooth System Operation
2014
Market Access International, Inc. Award: 
  • Kristina Poznan, History
    William & Mary, Advisor: Dr. Scott Nelson
    Austria-Hungary's Emigrant Houses as Transnational Spaces in Turn-of-the-Century New York City
Award for Excellence: 
  • Nicholas Alt, Psychology
    Advisor: Dr. Cheryl Dickter
    The Intersection of Race and Gender: Cognitive and Memory Consequences of Intersecting Identities
Honorable Mention:
  • David Pratt, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Susan Donaldson
    REDRUM as the Red Death: The Shining as Twentieth-Century Gothic Temperance Tale
  • Christopher Jones, History
    Advisor: Dr. Christopher Grazzo
    In Search of the Land of Liberty: Methodist Migrations and Antislavery in Virginia, 1780-1810
2013
Market Access International, Inc. Award: 
  • Sarah Stanford-McIntyre, American Studies
    William & Mary, Advisor: Dr. Arthur Knight
    “The First Fruits of the New Age,” Grain Elevators in the American Landscape
Award for Excellence: 
  • James Hill, History
    Advisor: Dr. Brett Rushforth
    “My warriors are Victorious over the Americans in every quarter”: The Spanish-Creek Alliance and its Efforts to Combat the New Republic, 1784-1789
Honorable Mention
  • Kathryn Bennett, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Elizabeth Barnes
    Ambiguity and Elegy: The New York Ledger and Abraham Lincoln
  • Madeleine Gunter, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Martin Gallivan

    Memorialization in Early Medieval Ireland: A Quantitative Study

2012
Market Access International, Inc. Award: 
  • Jenna Simpson, American Studies

    William & Mary, Advisor: Dr. Arthur Knight
    Selling a Shameful Past: Tourism and Living History in Salem, Massachusetts

Award for Excellence: 
  • Edward Hunt, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Charles McGovern
    Computer Penetration: Preparations for Cyber War
  • Julie Kittel, Psychology
    Advisor: Dr. Cheryl Dickter
    Early Attention to Racially Ambiguous Faces
Honorable Mention:
  • Alexandra Méav Jerome, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Maureen Fitzgerald
    From Bridget’s into Bin Laden’s: A Comparative Study of how the 19th Century Irish became the 20th/21st Century Muslims in American Political Cartoons

2011
Market Access International, Inc. Award: 
  • Erik Siedow, Anthropology
    William & Mary, Advisor: Dr. Frederick Smith
    An Archaeometric Examination of Barbadian Redware During the Early Colonial Era

Award for Excellence: 
  • John Fiorini, History
    Advisor: Dr. Leisa Meyer
    Nathan F. Leopold and the Maturity Narrative

Honorable Mention:
  • Ellen Chapman, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Michael Blakey
    'To restore to them their lost Reason': Processes of Treatment and Confinement at Williamsburg's Public Hospital on the Brink of the Moral Treatment Revolution 
  • Stephanie Hasselbacher, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Kathleen Bragdon
    "Shakespeare and All the Olden Talk": Linguistic Change and Authority at Coushatta, Louisiana
2010
Market Access International, Inc. Award: 
  • Nancy Hillman , History
    Advisor: Dr. Melvin Ely 
    A Complex Fellowship: Black and White Baptists in Southeastern Virginia, 1800 - 1860
Award for Excellence: 
  • Kathryn Holt, Psychology
    Advisor: Dr. Paul Kieffaber
    Cognitive Aging: Influences on Attention and Response Switching
Honorable Mention:
  • Jennifer Ogborne, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Martin Gallivan

    So... What Am I Supposed To Do With This Big Pile of Cans?: Methodological Techniques for Coping with 19th and 20th Century Can Dumps
  • Sarah Glosson, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Charles McGovern

    Domestic Music Making in Late Eighteenth-Century Elite Chesapeake Society: Playing Music, Performing Identity
2009
Market Access International, Inc. Award: 
  • Paul Musselwhite, History
    Advisor: Dr. James P. Whittenburg
    "What Town's this, Boy?": Virginia's Town Troubles, English Politics, and Aphra Behn's "The Widdow Ranter"
Award for Excellence: 
  • Karl Mendoza, Biology
    Advisor: Dr. John Griffin
    Penny For Your Thoughts?  How Neuroscience is Influencing Economic Thought: The Information Cascade Game Example
Honorable Mention:
  • Derek R. Miller, Anthropology
    Advisor: Dr. Frederick Smith

    Breaking the Mold: Sugar Ceramics and the Political Economy of 18th Century St. Eustatius
  • Frank Cha, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Susan Donaldson

    (Re)Visioning Home: Vietnamese Immigration and the Politics of Race/Place in the Global South
2008
Market Access International, Inc. Award: 
  • Erin Krutko, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Charlie McGovern
    Public Memory and Racial Reconciliation in Little Rock
Award for Excellence: 
  • Wendy Korwin, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Leisa Meyer
    Spectacles of Breeding: Kinship and the American Dog Show
Honorable Mention:
  • Natalie Brito, Psychology
    Advisor: Dr. Peter Vishton
    Influences of Motor System State on Ebbinghaus Illusion Magnitude
  • Shereen Singer, Psychology
    Advisor: Dr. Jennifer Stevens
    The Power of Imagery: Using Mental Imagery to Reduce Food Cravings
2007
Award for Excellence: 
  • Jenna Simpson, American Studies
    Advisor: Dr. Arthur Knight
    Screening the Revolution: Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot as Historic Artifact, History Film, & Hegemonic Struggle
Honorable Mention:
  • Shereen Singer, Psychology
    Advisor: Dr. Mark Leary
    Sociometer Theory Expanded: Interpersonal Aspirations and the Specificity of Multiple Sociometers
  • John Terrizzi, Jr., Psychology
    Advisor: Dr. Larry Ventis
    The Moral Emotion of Disgust as a Predictor of Prejudicial Attitudes Toward Homosexuals