Undergraduate News & Awards
2023 Awards
Andrew Johnston'23 has received the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for his Theories of Religion final podcast.
Victoria Grisanti'23 has received the Religious Studies Department Major Charisma Award for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
Chloe Chow'24 is one of the recepients of the Purple Pride Award that reocognize an outstanding third year student at the University. Chloe is a passionate advocate for free and open education, especially for marginalized comminuties. She leads Splash, a student organization focused on providing unique and enjoyble learning opportunity to underrepresented high school students. Since Joining as a freshman, she has dedicated herself to reviving and managing Splash, offering valuable teahcing exoeriences and outreach to the community. Chloe's commitment to free education is also evident in her involvement with Books and Breakfast.
2022 Awards
Lawrence Suba'22 has received the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled,
“The Talmud and its Gendered Meanings in Jewish Coming-Of-Age Narratives.”
Pranav Baskar'22 has received the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled,
“Judge Bao, “The People’s Protector:” CONTOURS OF EMOTION IN GONGNAN JURISPRUDENCE.”
David Marentic'22 and Anna Wang'22 have received the Religious Studies Department Major Charisma Awards for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
Chloe Chow has received Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship.
Haley Fuller'22 has written two front page stories for the Boston Globe in 2021-22. She has been accepted into the Master program in Media Innovation and Content Strategy at the Medill School of Journalism and will start in Fall 2022.
Lauren Joyce has received a 2022 Summer Undergraduate Research Grant to make a podcast documenting the narratives of queer christians and ex-christians.
2021 Awards
Emily Holtzman has received the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled, “Objects of influence: Sacrality and Native American material culture across five contexts.”
(Faculty Advisor: Erin Waxenbaum).
Mara Kelly has received the Theta Alpha Kappa Honor Society of Religion Award for the most innovative research titled, “Extreme Until Proven Moderate: How media prioritization of false-balance and intrenched American Islamophobia culminated in one of the most influential news events of 2010.”
(Faculty Advisors: Brannon Ingram, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd)
Natalie Welber and Haley Fuller have received the Religious Studies Department Major Charisma Awards for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
2020 Awards
Chris LaMountain has won the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled “Songs of the “Universal Shelter” On the Particularism of Devotional Music in Baha’i Houses of Worship.” (Faculty Advisor: Brannon Igram).
Samuel Maude has won the Religious Studies Major Department Charisma Award for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
Jonathan Hanitio has won the Religious Studies Minor Department Charisma Award for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
2019 Awards
Emily Holtzman has won the Religious Studies Department Charisma Award for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
Afsar Sandozi has won the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled "From Oaxaca to Chicago: The Role of Museums as Centers for Religious Healing in the Public Commemorations of Día de los Muertos in the U.S. A Case Study of Pilsen, Chicago." (Faculty Advisor: Michelle Molina)
Chris LaMountain, a dual-degree student majoring in vocal performance and religious studies, has won a Circumnavigator’s Travel-Study Grant from the Northwestern Office of Undergraduate Research. His project is called "A Global Song: Investigating the Global Diversity of Baha’i Temple Music." Read more on Bienen School of Music website.
2018 Awards
Jessica Castellanos has won the Religious Studies Department Team Player Award.
Adina Goldman has won the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled "In the Courtyard of Death: Lively Encounters in the Talmudic Cemetery". (Faculty Advisor: Mira Balberg)
Megan McGlauchlen has won the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled “The Dakini Dance: Feminism, Status, and Dharma in the Tibetan Diaspora.” (Faculty Advisor: Sarah Jacoby)
Anne Higgins has won the Religious Studies Department Charisma Award for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
Adina Goldman has won the 2017-2018 Kaplan Institute Franke Undergraduate Fellowship for her thesis project: “Do the Dead Know?” The Living and the Lively Dead in Rabbinic and Early Christian Literature”
Project description: “In Jewish Talmudic writings, the dead can feel physical pain and experience the emotional sting of insult. And among early Christians, the relics of saints were prized for the miraculous healing powers ascribed to them even in death. My project will explore these hazy boundaries between life and death in the religious literature of Late Antiquity. I will especially focus on the graveyard as a site of unique permeability, because it represented the physical point of contact between the realms of the living and the dead. Through my work I will attempt to answer the question: what does it mean for the dead to live on?”
Matthew Griffin has won a summer Undergraduate Research Grant for his thesis project on Moon Knight, mysticism and mythology.
Project description: “My thesis is on a 1980s Marvel comic book series about a man who believes an ancient Egyptian moon deity is telling him to become a superhero. The titular character also displays symptoms of mental illnesses, which complicate his story and blur the lines between religious experience and mental illness. I see Moon Knight as a combination of traditional religious interests, such as the interaction between man and god, with more modern concerns, such as diagnosing mental illness and the cultural resonance of the superhero archetype.“
2017 Awards
Phillip Davis has won the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled "Campus Kingdoms: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Theological Tensions in Evangelical College Ministry". (Faculty Advisor: Robert Orsi)
Delaney Burlingame has won the Religious Studies Department Charisma Award for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
2016 Awards
Alexa Klein-Mayer has won the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled "Grasping the Roots: The Radical Syncretism of Marxism and Buddhism in the Lives of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama".
Jonathan Schild has won the Religious Studies Department Charisma Award for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
2015 Awards
Jonathan Schild has won the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled "“The Question of Substance-Attribute Identity in Spinoza's Ethics.”".
Diana Rawles has won the Religious Studies Department Charisma Award for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
2014 Awards
Krishni Metivier has won the Religious Studies Department award of The Theta Alpha Kappa Honor Society in Religion Award for her essay, "Strong of Heart: Women in the Hare Krishna Movement". (Faculty Advisor: Sarah Taylor).
Philip McPeek has won the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled "Gottlob Harrer’s Cross-Confessional La Passione del Nostro Signore: A Musical, Theological, and Historical Examination".
(Faculty Advisor: Christine Helmer)
Andy Sutton has won the Religious Studies Department Charisma Award for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
2013 Awards
Jordan Wohlner has won the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled "International Mission Trips and Social Ethics in the Roman Catholic Church".
(Faculty Advisor: Cristina Traina Rel St / William Murphy Anthropology)
Michael DeBaets has won the Religious Studies Department Charisma Award for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
2012 Awards
Kathleen Stevens has won the Religious Studies Department award of Most Innovative Research for her essay, "She built a church, great and distinguished, in the wilderness": Saint Monenna and Her Relation to Roman Orthodoxy. (Faculty Advisor: Richard Kieckhefer)
Patricia Lawlis has won the Religious Studies Department Edmund Perry Award for the best Essay titled "Samson: A Study in Artistic Interpretation".
(Faculty Advisor: George Bond)
Lisa Wang has won the Religious Studies Department Charisma Award for Compassionate Presence and Community Citizenship.
2011 Summer URG Winners
Allison Manley, “Buddhist Themes in Contemporary America: Adapting Buddhist Jataka Tales into Contemporary Short Stories”. (Faculty Advisor: Brian Bouldrey)
Kaitlin Meyer, “Body Image among Jewish Women”. (Faculty Advisor: Renee Engeln-Maddox)
Other News and Awards
Three of our majors have been selected to present research projects at this year's Undergraduate Research Symposium. Emily Raymond and Lewis Wallace will present their honors theses. Makoa Kawabata was selected for the Undergraduate Research Symposium to present his research paper from the Advanced Senior Seminar in Theories of Religion.
Kawabata has also won an Undergraduate Research Grant to turn his paper theorizing religion and practical identity into an article-length academic monograph for journal publication in the Journal for the Study of Method and Theory of Religion. Makoa also directs his own NU TV television program about zombies called, "(Un)dead Seriously."
Sasha Bayan K. has a double major in Guitar Performance and Religious Studies and was selected for the URG to study Flamenco in Sevilla.
Caroline Perry received an Undergraduate Research Award for her project, "The Ethics and Moral Theology of Forgiveness in Intimate Partner Violence: A Feminist Approach." Perry has also recently been invited to join the Phi Beta Kappa Society.