Awards in the Humanities and Social Sciences

W&M Recipients

2025

William & Mary Interdisciplinary Award for Excellence in Research

Victoria Gum, Anthropology
Advisors: Dr. Michael Blakey and Dr. Andrea Wright
They Paved Paradise: Historic Preservation and Erasure at the First Baptist Church

Graduate Studies Advisory Board Award for Excellence

Jenny Merriman, History
Advisor: Dr. Nick Popper
The Behaim Behemoth: The Discovery of America and German Diplomacy in the Age of Imperialism, 1682-1800

Award for Excellence: 

Travis Lee, History
Advisor: Dr. Hiroshi Kitamura

On Speaking Terms: Phrasebooks and Chinese-American Relations in the Late Nineteenth Century

Honorable Mention, Award for Excellence:

Molly Robinson, American Studies
Advisor: Dr. Hannah Rosen
A Closer Look: Finding Kinship in a State-Assembled Photographic Archive

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
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

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
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 Mentions:

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
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 Mentions:

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
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 Mentions:

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

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
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 Mentions:

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 Mentions:

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 Mentions:

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 Mentions:

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 Mentions:

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