Cunningham '25 captivates, captures Barr Prize in Public Speaking
Conveying complex research in a way that is accessible to a general audience is a challenge for even the most accomplished researchers. For Barr Fellows in Public Speaking, it is an unrivaled strength.
In preparation for this year’s Spring Honors Research Symposium, the Charles Center offered a new option — the opportunity to enroll in a new one-credit public speaking course that specifically prepares students to present their work clearly and confidently.
Taught by William & Mary’s Director of Speech Len Neighbors, the program helps students develop effective oratory skills that allow them to stand out in a professional setting.
Ten honors students elected to join the semester-long course and become inaugural Barr Fellows, honing their presentation and storytelling skills with the mentorship of Neighbors and their peers.
On April 3, five Barr Fellow finalists competed for the 2025 Barr Prize in Public Speaking by presenting a 5-minute distillation of their honors research to a general audience in Sadler Center's Commonwealth Auditorium. Stakes were high, with prizes ranging from $1,000 to $250.
Stanley “Butch” Barr ‘62, B.C.L. ‘66, P ‘92, G ‘21, a legal professional and instructor of speech at the university, provided the vision and support for the new fellowship, administered through the Charles Center.
“The Charles Center has developed a process in which students are giving their research reports as a story that we can all understand,” said Barr to the crowd in Commonwealth Auditorium. “It has developed the notion that very technical research reports can be delivered in a way that is comprehensible, acceptable, and memorable.” 
Biology and environmental science double major Olivia Cunningham ’25 garnered first place in the competition for telling the story of her research journey investigating milkweed hybridization. Hybridization is a process that allows plants to rapidly evolve by transferring beneficial traits from well adapted species to poorly adapted species.
“If you’re interested in creating a big drought-resistant tomato, you could cross a big tomato with a drought-resistant one, and maintain most of the big tomato genes with just enough of the drought resistant ones,” Cunningham explained.
By studying this process in milkweed, Cunningham revealed how plants and food systems can evolve in the face of climate change.
“Now that we understand how hybridization works in milkweed, we could apply it to something like coffee trees,” she said. “Say there's a coffee bean that you love the flavor of, but the habitat that it grows in is limited and threatened. We could use our knowledge on this to expand the range that that coffee bean can be found in.” 
The second-place prize went to history and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies double major Henry Hermes ’25. Hermes investigates how Soviet cookbooks and culinary literature intended as propaganda to create a distinct cultural identity among its multiethnic citizenry instead only intensified citizens’ discontent with their Soviet government.
“Cookbooks are fundamentally aspirational texts,” Hermes explained. “Soviets developed a sense of aspirations as to what their government could and should provide in grocery stores. The disconnect between those expectations and the lived circumstances of everyday people was one of the major contributing factors to the collapse of the Soviet Union.” 
The recipient of the third-place prize was physics major Russell Burns ’25, who studies the modeling of plasma behaviors. Plasma is a hot, gaseous mixture of ions and electrons that is used in a wide array of ways.
“Plasma sounds like pure science fiction,” Burns said. “It's in our TVs, our fluorescent lights. We use it to manufacture electronics, we use it to propel spacecraft, and we even use it to cure our food.”
Burns explained how his decision to continue his arduous studies in the face of self-doubt ultimately paid off.
“I realized that projects like that are equal parts celebration, exercise, selflessness, and grit,” he said. “The opportunities came, and now I’m going to be able to use my exact research next year in my Ph.D. program.” 
Runners-up in the competition were self-designed environmental issues major and Sharpe Scholar Kaleea Korunka ‘25 and biology and mathematics double major Yigit Simsek ’25. Korunka studies microplastic pollution in W&M’s Lake Matoaka, while Simsek examines cell signaling related to thyroid hormone receptors.
According to Peter Barr ‘92, P ‘21, who joined his father Butch at this year’s event, the fellowship is a deeply valuable opportunity for students to grow in their public speaking skills.
“I’ve had to do a lot of public speaking, and I learned the hard way. I had to learn by experience, and the Barr Fellows will all learn by experience as well, but this is a great foundation,” he said, “I wish I had had the same opportunity.”
Are you an honors student interested in becoming a Barr Fellow? Learn more here.
