The Claremont Colleges Library has selected the winners of its 10th Annual Library Undergraduate Research Award (LURA). Students who demonstrate exemplary original research and scholarship, including remarkable skill and creativity in the use of library and information resources, receive recognition and cash prizes ranging from $500 to $1,500 for their work.
The Library again received a robust number of student submissions from across all five undergraduate institutions of The Claremont Colleges (TCC) consortium in 2023. From this year’s 40 outstanding submissions, the 2023 LURA winners are:
SENIOR AWARD
Lizbeth Valdivia-Jauregui, Scripps College
Paper Title: “La Sagrada Medicina Da La Madre Tierra: Traditional Ancestral Preservation In Pomona, CA Community Gardens”
Faculty Sponsor: Ted Bartholomew, Scripps College
JUNIOR AWARD
Camile Bernard, Pomona College
Paper Title: “Community, Capitalism, and OxyContin: A Holistic Examination of the Opioid Crisis”
Faculty Sponsor: Tamara Venit-Shelton, Claremont McKenna College
SOPHOMORE AWARD
Aidan Henrikson, Pitzer College
Paper Title: “The Building of Warren County Democrats”
Faculty Sponsor: Will Barndt, Pitzer College
FIRST-YEAR AWARD
Arenaria Cramer, Pomona College
Paper Title: “William Honnold and Pomona’s Legacy of Colonial Exploitation”
Faculty Sponsor: Samuel Anderson, Pomona College
GROUP PROJECT AWARD
Reia Li (Junior), Pomona College
Rina Nagashima (Junior), Scripps College
Project Title: “Quantifying the Effects of Prison Gerrymandering in Arizona and Hawaii”
Faculty Sponsor: Sarah Cannon, Claremont McKenna College
An awards ceremony to honor the winners will be held on Thursday, April 20, 2023 at 4:15 p.m. in the Library’s Founders Room. Light refreshments will be available starting at 4 p.m. and there will be an opportunity to chat with Library staff after the ceremony to learn more about the Library services and resources available for students. While friends, family and associated faculty of the winners are encouraged to attend, this is also a great opportunity for students across TCC to draw inspiration from the winners’ projects — especially as finals season approaches!
Library staff is humbled and honored to support the research efforts of all TCC students and, through LURA, recognize their outstanding work. Since its start in 2014, LURA has generated the publication of 56 student research projects through TCC”s institutional repository Scholarship@Claremont, which have contributed to a wide array of academic fields. As a testament to the quality nature of these projects, these winning and honorable mention papers have been downloaded nearly 35,000 times from readers around the world — from Los Angeles, California, to the United Kingdom, Pakistan, the Phillipines and all the way to Australia.
Undergraduate students from across the consortium have the opportunity to apply for LURA every year. This means that students are likely already hard at work on 2024 submissions and discovering new things to add to the world.
Visit the LURA webpage for additional information. Questions about LURA, including the awards ceremony and application process, can be directed to libraryresearchaward@claremont.edu.