 SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF DISCOVERIES |
STUDENT ESSAY AWARD WINNERS
2025 Graduate Student Research Prize
Winner - Oliver Lucier, PhD candidate in the History of Science and Medicine at Yale University.
“Not an explorer in the proper sense of the word": Paul Du Chaillu, Cultures of Geographic Precision, and the Remapping of Environmental Knowledges: 1856-1865.
Oliver has always been interested in the intersection of history and geography, as a child he loved to study historicalatlases and competed in the National Geographic Society’s National Geography Bee where he won second place in 2010. For college, Oliver attended Rice University earning a BA in History with Honors and a BS in Earth Science. He later attended Durham University, where he received an MA in Geography with Distinction. His current research is on the intersections of the history of science, environmental history, and geography over the 19th and 20th centuries.
Honorable Mention - Ana Laura Zuñiga Loreto, PHD candidate in the History Department at Columbia University.
The Discovery of Accuracy: Time, Longitude, and the Making of Geographical Knowledge in New Spain.
Ana is interested in the history of cosmography and cartography in the early modern world as well as the Indigenous history of the Americas. Her current research focuses on the artistic skills and technical knowledge mobilized in the creation of Nahua pictorial histories, including maps, presented as legal evidence in colonial courts in New Spain. Through the lenses of “legal technologies,” she seeks to move beyond the conventional understanding of pictorial documents as “tools,” or “instruments” to emphasize social-material systems through which legality was materially and epistemically constituted.
Prior Student Award Winners
2024
Graduate Student Winner: There was no Graduate Student Research Prize for 2024.
Undergraduate StudentWinner: Gracyn Stroman - East Texas Baptist University
2023
Graduate Student Winner: Dan Lewis — University of Kentucky
"Many Fabulous Stories and Idle Tales"
Undergraduate StudentWinner: Jordan Coleman — Stephen F. Austin State University
"Indigenous Contributions to the Corps of Discovery Expedition Maps"
2022
Graduate Student Winner: Manoel Rendeiro — University of California Davis
“A Desert in a Sea of River and Runaways: Empires, Maps, and Fugitivity in Amazonian Borderlands (1777-1800)"
Undergraduate StudentWinner: Katherine Enright — Harvard College
“Natural History in and out of the Tropics: Retracing the William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings”
2021
Graduate Student Winner: Stephen Hay—University of British Columbia
“Politics by Other Means: Maritime Communication in Massachusetts and Labrador”
Honorable Mention: Elizabeth Nielsen—Brown University
“ 'This Dismall Country’ Voyaging and Space in the HMS Dolphin, 1766-1767”
Undergraduate Student Winner: Michaela Sapielak—University of Fraser Valley
“Sir John Franklin: More Than an Arctic Mystery”
2020
Graduate Student Winner: Peter Olsen-Harbich — William & Mary
"The Reguli Strategy: Diminutive Kingship and the Ideology of Late Renaissance Imperial Planning"
Honorable Mention: Samuel Diener— Harvard University
"Narration in the Key of 'We': The Voyage and the Grammar of Identity
2019 Madeline Grimm — University of California, Los Angeles
“Early Modern History Writing and English Perception of the Mughal Empire”
2018 Daniella McCahey— University of California, Irvine
“The Traveling Rocks”
2017 Noam Sienna — University of Minnesota
“The Ways of the World: Thomas Hyde’s 1691 Printing of Farissol’s Iggeret Orḥot ‘Olam,”
2016 No prize awarded
2015 Felipe Fernandes Cruz, University of Texas, Austin
“Napalm Colonization: Indigenous Peoples and Exploration in Brazil’s Aeronautical Frontiers.”
2014 Josephine Benson, Brown University
“New Worlds, New Germs: The Role of European Expansion in the Development of Germ Theory.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 47.1 (2015).
2013 Joshua Michael Marcotte, University of Minnesota
“Culture, Contact and the Agency of Appropriation in a 1741 Map of Nagasaki.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 46.1 (2014).
2012 Justin T. Dellinger, University of Texas, Arlington
“La Balise: A Transimperial Focal Point.”
2011 No prize awarded
2010 Scott Vincent Hatcher, Memorial University, St. John’s Newfoundland
“The Birth of the Monsoon Winds: On the Existence and Understand of Hippalus, and the ‘Discovery’ of the Apogeous Trade Winds.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 45.1 (2013)
2009 No prize awarded
2008 Gabriel Hill, University of Minnesota
“French Merchants and Missionaries on the Early Modern Slave Coast.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 41 (2009).
2007 Antony Adler, University of Washington
“Uncharted Seas: European Polynesian Encounters in the Age of Discoveries.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 40 (2008).
2006 Matt H. Voss, University of Minnesota
“In this sign you shall conquer.’ The Cross of the Order of Christ in Sixteenth-Century Portuguese Cartography.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 39 (2007).
2005 Alice Storey, University of Aukland
“Layers of Discovery.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 38 (2006).
2004 Christopher Slogar, University of Maryland, College Park
“Polyphernus africanus: Mapping Cannibals in the History of the Cross River Region of Nigeria, ca. 1500-1985.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 37 (2005).
2003 Robert D. Lukens, Temple University
“Finding Themselves in the Arctic: Samuel J. Entrikin and the Peary Expedition of 1893-1895.”
2002 Carol A. Medlicott, University of California, Los Angeles
“Re-thinking Geographical Exploration as Intelligence Collection: The Example of Lewis and Clark’s ‘Corps of Discovery’.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 35 (2003).
2001 No prize awarded
2000 Paul W. Mapp, Harvard University
“French Reactions to the British Search for a Northwest Passage from Hudson Bay and the Origins of the Seven Years’ War.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 33 (2001).
1999 Neil Safier, The Johns Hopkins University
“Mapping Myths: The Cartographic Boundaries Between Science and Speculation in La Condamine’s Amazon, 1743-44.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 33 (2001).
1998 Ken Mitchell, University of Minnesota
“Science, Giants & Gold: Juan de la Cruz Cano’s Mapa Geographic de American Meridional.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 31 (1999).
1997 Please contact the Society if you have any information about the award for this year.
1996 Lynn Guitar
“Francisco Chicorama: A North American Indian in King Charles V’s Court.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 29 (1997).
1995 Please contact the Society if you have any information about the award for this year.
1994 José Delgado
“A Cartographic view of the Falkland Malvinas Sovereignty Problem.”
1993 Christian Brannstrom, University of Wisconsin, Madison
“The River of Silver and the Island of Brazil.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 27 (1995).
1992 Please contact the Society if you have any information about the award for this year.
1991 Please contact the Society if you have any information about the award for this year.
1990 Carol Sparks
“England and the Columbian Discoveries: The Attempt to Legitimize English Voyages to the New World.” Published in Terrae Incognitae 22 (1990).
1989 Please contact the Society if you have any information about the award for this year.
1988 First Year. No prize awarded, but two papers received honorable mentions.