The Winston Family Honors Writing Awards are a highlight of the University of Maryland Honors College Citation Ceremony, celebrating the exceptional research and writing of Honors students each spring. These competitive awards recognize outstanding short essays, research papers, and departmental honors theses. Supported by the Winston family’s generosity, the awards reflect the Honors College’s commitment to academic excellence and intellectual inquiry.
This year’s student awardees are:
Best Research Paper
- Anushka Poddar ’27 (University Honors), “Factory Farming in the United States: Implications for Climate Change, Infectious Disease, and Civil Society”
- Isra Qadri ’25 (Honors Humanities), “A Tale of Two Occupations: Autonomy as State Prevention in Palestine as Applied to Kashmir”
Best Honors Thesis
- Christopher Clark ’25 (Aerospace Engineering Departmental Honors), “Optimizing Specific Actuation Force of Soft Composite Pneumatic Artificial Muscles Using Additively Manufactured Components”
- Anna Petersen ’25 (Criminology and Criminal Justice Departmental Honors), “The Association Between Ghost Gun Usage and Neighborhood Disadvantage”
- William Ratnavale ’25 (Economics Departmental Honors), “The Impact of ChatGPT on Establishment-Level Task Structures in the Labor Market”
- James Schmidtlein ’25 (History Departmental Honors), “Christians in a Pagan World: Understanding the Construction of Early Christian Identity from a Pagan Past and Custom”
- Holland Schmitz ’25 (History Departmental Honors), “Shaping the Sapphic City: New York City Lesbianism and Lesbian Pulp Novels 1945-1968″
- Matthew Zinno ’25 (Honors Global Challenges & Solutions, Government & Politics Departmental Honors), “Executive Orders Under Judicial Scrutiny: The Role of Partisanship in Judicial Outcomes”
Congratulations to all the awardees!
Photo credit: Akash Raghu.
