Congratulations to the 2017 Library Research Prize Winners!

On Wednesday May 3, Qianwen Li, Yue Pu and Nicole Funaro were awarded the 2017 Library Research Prizes of $1,000 and were honored at a reception in the Library. There were a record number of applications, therefore the committee also decided to present two honorable mentions as well: Samantha Brown and Lauren Hart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicole Funaro was awarded the undergraduate Library Research Prize for her research paper entitled "Gendered News Coverage of Hillary Clinton in ‘08 and ‘16 Campaigns." Nicole wrote her capstone paper for Dr. Colleen Arendt’s course, Research Projects in Communication. Nicole is a senior with a Communication major and a double-minor in Journalism and Public Relations.

The committee was impressed with Nicole's bibliography which included print sources and scholarly articles from databases that she found on the library's Communication research guide. Dr. Arendt spoke highly of Nicole's research saying "In a class where most people collect data (surveys, interviews, focus groups) and want to work in groups, she chose to work alone so she could focus on a passion project. She wanted to combine her interests in gender and journalism by analyzing New York Times' coverage of Clinton in 2008 and 2016. Nicole is ridiculously smart and talented and I think she would do well in graduate school someday."

The winners of the Graduate Research category was a team research project submitted by Qianwen Li and Yue Pu. They wrote a paper entitled ‘Document Clustering on the Textual Features of Management’s Discussions and Analysis Sections in IPO Prospectuses’ for an Independent Study in Information Systems and Operations Management taught by Dr. Jie Tao. Both Qianwen and Yue will be graduating this May with a Masters of Science in Business Analytics from the  Dolan School of Business.

Qianwen and Yue  utilized a variety of library resources, particularly databases (such as ABI/Inform and IEEE), research and citation guides from the library website, and booked research appointments with reference librarians. Their professor, Dr. Tao, commented "Throughout this project, I have observed enough evidences that the spirit of research has been rooted in both of them. I know both Qianwen and Yue as diligent students who complete any tasks undertaken. Within this project, they have maintained regular communication and provided regular progress updates on other research projects. Based on these, I am sure that the research habit, as well as the curiosity to inquire for solutions to real-world problems, will be persistent in their future careers."

Honorable Mentions were awarded to undergraduates Samantha Brown for her research in support of her project entitled "The Synthesis and Characterization of Dynamic Self-Assembling Nucleopeptide Systems" and to Lauren Hart for her research in support of her project entitled "The Nature of Love in Sufism: An analysis of the tenets of Sufism from a Sufi and psychological perspective". Lauren and Samantha are both sophomores and we look forward to great things from them throughout their next two years at Fairfield University.

The panel of Library Research Prize judges was composed of members of the faculty library committee and librarians. All of the applications were judged by librarians, Christina McGowan, Barbara Ghilardi and Lisa Thornell. In addition, Rajasree Rajamma, Associate Professor of Marketing and Chair of the Library Faculty Committee, and Colleen Arendt, Assistant Professor of Communication, judged the Graduate submissions. Reviewing the undergraduate submissions were Matthew Kubasik, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Jiwei Xiao, Chair of Modern Languages & Literature, and Eileen O’Shea, Associate Professor of Nursing.

Thank you to Fairfield University's School of Nursing, the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions, Dolan School of Business, College of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Engineering for their financial support of the prizes, in addition to the Library's financial commitment.