Hoefer Prize Essays Archive
The Hoefer Prize-winning writing presented below represents excellence across the disciplines, spanning all areas of undergraduate study. We are pleased to share these essays with Stanford students, faculty, and the larger Stanford community. If you'd like to access a file that isn't linked below, please contact pwracademictech@stanford.edu.
2023-2024 Hoefer Prize Winners
Madeleine Cassic, “’Responsibility to Protect:’ Jonestown and the U.S. Embassy in Guyana” (IR 174 / Instructor: Robert Rakove)
Niloufar Davis, “Under the Same Banner? Wages for Housework and the Contestation Over ‘the Bills,’ 1972-1980” (History 209S / Instructor: Destin Jenkins, Christian Robles-Baez)
Leon MacAlister, “Dumplings of the Overflow” (ECON 101 / Instructors: Marcelo Clerici-Arias, Ian Calaway)
Stella Li, “To Remain in Love: On Collective Memory and the Archive” (ENGLISH 5BA / Instructor: Luca Messarra)
Georgios Mikos, “Deep Brain Simulation” (BIOE 131 / Instructors: Russ B. Altman, David Magnus, John Klich)
Ihyun Nam, “The Avg-Act Swap and Plaintext Overflow Detection in Fully Homomorphic Operations Over Deep Circuits” (CS 191W / Instructor: John C. Mitchell)
Olivia Ziegler, “The Trap of Survivorhood” (FemGen 151 / Instructor: Laura Goode)
2022-2023 Hoefer Prize Winners
Chanse Bhakta, Juan Martínez, Kasen Stephensen, and Vladimir Gonzalez Migal, “Climate Alerts Along Global Supply Chains: Opportunity Identification & Marketing Strategies” (MS&E 108 / Instructor: James Sweeney)
Isaac Harris, “Defining Citizenship Through the Barrel of a Gun: Xenophobia and Gun Control in Early 20th Century California.” (HISTORY 209S / Instructors: Jennifer Burns, Austin Steelman
Matyas Kisiday, “The Officer Next Door: The Political Police and Social Contacts in Socialist Hungary, 1961-1969” (HISTORY 209 / Instructors: J. P. Daughton, Aliyah Dunn-Salahuddin)
Tiffany Liu, “Solid to Liquid, Literal to Metaphorical: How Shifting States of Water Reflect Lakota Sovereignty in Black Elk Speaks” (AMSTUD 160/ENG 165 / Instructors: Judith Richardson, Andrew Touma)
Melissa Oliveira, “Conectados por el dolor: La idea de la solidaridad Sur-Sur en ‘El Ojo Silva.’” (ILAC 161 / Instructors: Héctor Hoyos, Yurim Kim)
Daryn Rockett, “Black Women and the Church: A Contemporary Exploration of (Young) Black Womanhood and the Historically Afro-Protestant Church” (AAAS 200x / Instructors: Katie Dieter, Darion Wallace)
Sorcha Witley, “‘Damage, Death, and Destruction’: U.S. Diplomacy During the Cyprus Crisis.” (INTNLREL 174 / HISTORY 252B / Instructor: Rob Rakove)
2021-2022 Hoefer Prize Winners
Engineering
Maria Ridgeway-Elsner, “Cob Castle Project Management Plan” (CEE 100: Managing Sustainable Building Projects / Instructor: Dr. Martin Fischer)
Adam Shugar, “High Incubation Temperature Reduces Biofuel Productivity of Genetically Engineered E. coli” (CHEMENG 185A: Chemical Engineering Laboratory A / Instructors: Alex Engel & Dr. Monther Abu-Remaileh)
Humanities
Arman Kassam, “‘Another Habitable World’: John Wilkins’s Geographical Inspiration for The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638)" (History 209S: Research Seminar for Majors / Instructor: J.P Daughton)
Dohyun Kim, “Korean Literature’s Political Possibilities in the Division System: DMZ Colony and the Translational Mode" (KOREA 120: Narratives of Modern and Contemporary Korea / Instructor: Dafna Zur)
Emma Smith, “Benign Neglect in Burundi: Evaluating the U.S. Response to the 1972 Burundi Genocide” (International Relations 174: Diplomacy on the Ground / Instructor: Rob Rakove)
Math
Hari Sowrirajan, “The Orbit-Stabilizer Theorem” (MATH 120: Groups and Rings / Instructor: Paweł Grzegrzółka)
Sciences
Allan Feng & Jacob Greene, “Ecological factors that modulate microbial richness in Mimulus aurantiacus nectar” (BIO 47: Introduction to Research in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology / Instructor: Shyamala Malladi)
Social Sciences
Eli Neal, “Honors Thesis Prospectus” (AFRICAAM 200X: Honors Thesis and Senior Thesis Seminar/Instructor: Katie Dieter)
Grace Scullion, “California’s Literacy-Education Wars – A Package of Three Stories” (COMM 104W: Reporting, Writing and Understanding the News / Instructor: Janine Zacharia)
2020-2021 Hoefer Prize Winners
Engineering
Jahnavi Deb, Olivia Anne Hallisey, Akhil Kryspin Maddukuri, Caroline Nicole Spertus, “The School to Prison Pipeline" (MS&E108: Management Science & Engineering: Senior Project / Instructor: James Sweeney)
Humanities
Ekalan Hou, "Eat Pecola Breedlove, Love Pecola Breedlove, Be Pecola Breedlove: Digestion and Desire in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye” (ENGL5B: Writing Intensive Seminar in English / Instructor: Anna Mukamal)
Elizabeth Anne Lindqwister, “‘Tabernacle of Flesh’: Traversing and Transcending Death and Gender in the Life of the Public Universal Friend, 1776-1819” (HIST209S: Research Seminar for Majors / Instructor: J.P. Daughton)
Christina Nikitin, "Queering the Blues in Little Richard’s 'Lucille'" (MUSIC147J: The Soul Tradition in African American Music / Instructor: Charles Kronengold)
Sciences
Isabella Duan and Eric Liu, "Water availability modulates the mycobiome composition of Evernia prunastri" (BIO46: Introduction to Research in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology / Instructor: Jesse Miller)
Social Sciences
John Kohler, “The Antitrust Implications of the Privacy Paradox" (ECON101: Economic Policy Analysis / Instructor: Cristian Santesteban)
Kelly-Ann Lee, "The Impact of Widowhood on Depression Risk for Individuals Aged 55 and Older" (ECON101: Economic Policy Analysis / Instructor: Gopi Shah Goda)
2019-2020 Hoefer Prize Winners
Engineering
Amelia Traylor, Brigitte Schmittlein, Cainan Cole, Jessica Hyman, "Medico: A High Volume, High Viscosity Autoinjector to Increase HIV Patient Compliance" (ME170: Mechanical Engineering: Integrating Context with Engineering / Instructors: Jeff Wood and Shoshanah Cohen)
Humanities
Won-Gi Jung, "‘Chinese-free Keijo’ and Korean Ethnic Nationalism:The Imaginative Geography of the Colonial Capital in Pang Chŏnghwan’s Searching for My Sister" (KOREA 120: Narratives of Modern and Contemporary Korea / Instructor: Dafna Zur)
Erin Wenokur, "Grate Society: The War on Poverty in the Age of 'New Homelessness'" (HISTORY 209S: Research Seminar for Majors / Instructor: Jennifer Burns)
Sciences
Jessica Fry, "Automated Beam Optimization for Quantum Control" (PHYSICS 107: Intermediate Physics Laboratory II: Experimental Techniques and Data Analysis / Instructor: Leo Holberg)
Social Sciences
Olivia Morello, "Maintaining Spanish Neutrality: U.S. Policy Toward Spain in the Second World War" (INTLREL 174: Diplomacy on the Ground / Instructor: Robert Rakove)
Atlanta Rydzik, "How to Get Away with Murder: The Racialization of Police Killings, Criminalization of Black Victims, and Protection of Police Officers in the News" (SOC 204: Capstone Research Seminar / Instructor: Jackelyn Hwang)
Emma Talley, "Addressing the Housing Crisis on the Peninsula: Three Stories" (COMM 104W: Reporting, Writing & Understanding the News / Instructor: Janine Zacharia)
2018-2019 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Amir Abou-Jaoude, "Perfecting the Photographic Process: An Analysis of Robert Mapplethorpe's Javier (1985)" (ARTHIST 294: Writing the Visual: The Art of Art Writing / Instructor: Kim Beil)
Grace Julia Connor, "Bread versus Brot: A Historic, Biochemical, and Cultural Analysis of How Bread in Germany is Different from Bread in America" (GERMAN 116: Writing about Germany / Instructor: Kathryn Starkey)
Jenna Garden, "Through the Blood-Stained Gate: Ethical Literary Renderings of Violence against Black Bodies in the Age of Mass Media" (ENGL 162W: Contemporary Narratives of Slavery / Instructor: Alexander Manshel)
Alex Veitch, "The Imagined Menagerie: Taming the Cisterian Conversi with the Latin Bestiary" (HISTORY 209S: Research Seminar for Majors / Instructors: Fiona Griffiths and Chris Basich)
Lina Wang, "Imperial Monument, Fascist Propaganda, Highway Rest Stop: The Ara Pacis through the Ages" (CLASSICS 150: Majors Seminar / Instructors: Richard Saller and Kevin Ennis)
Social Sciences
Gabriela Torres-Lorenzotti, "The Rwandan Genocide: Sifting through the Diplomatic Toolbox" (INTLREL 174: Diplomacy on the Ground / Instructor: Robert Rakove)
Engineering
Philip Clark, Juliet Daniel, Danielle Devera, Wyatt Pontius, "Food for Thought: Delivering Continuous Improvement through Better Experimental Analysis" (MS&E 108: Senior Project / Instructor: Ross Shachter)
Simone Speizer, "Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement: A Biological and Ethical Analysis" (BIOE 131: Bioengineering Ethics / Instructors: Russ Altman and David Magnus)
2017-2018 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Lena Giger, "The Right to Participate and the Right to Compete: Stanford Women's Athletics 1956-1995" (HISTORY 209S: Research Seminar for Majors / Instructors: Estelle B. Freedman and Michelle Lynn Kahn)
Bernardo Velez, "The Landscape as Portrait: Alejandro Cartagena's Unpeopled Photographs of the US-Mexico Border" (ARTHIST 294: Writing and the Visual: Photography and Truth / Instructors: Kim Beil and Alexandria Brown-Hedjazi)
Victoria Hope White, "Love and Money: Theater, Moral Reform, and Changing Ideals of Marriage in Eighteenth-Century England" (ENGLISH 162W: Writing Intensive Seminar in English / Instructor: Erik L. Johnson)
Social Sciences
Sarah Noel Manney, "A Post-Truth World? Fake News, Skepticism, and Civic Engagement in Estonia" (POLISCI 299A: Research Design / Instructor: Adriane Fresh)
Engineering
Crystal Zheng, "Retaining HIV drug market dominance: Should Gilead Science Inc. acquire HIVHealth?" (MS&E 152W: Introduction to Decision Analysis / Instructor: Ross D. Shachter)
Sciences
Emily Dial, "Waves Don't Die: On Blackness and Water" (EARTHSYS 249: Wild Writing / Instructor: Richard Nevle)
Bruce Hamilton Tiu, "Defining a Role for RSK in Normal and Aberrant Myelopoiesis" (BIO 199W: Senior Honors Thesis / Instructor: Sally A. Kim)
2016-2017 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Quyen Nguyen, "Wilfredo Lam's Infiltration" (ARTHIST 294: Writing and the Visual: Surrealism and its Afterlives / Instructors: Marci Kwon and Joseph Larnerd)
Heath Rojas, "Construire l'indépendance et échapper au conformisme: le motif d'apprentissage dans Candide et Lettres d'une Péruvienne" (FRENCH 131: Absolutism, Enlightenment, and Revolution in 17th- and 18th-Century France / Instructor: Chloe Summers Edmondson)
Alex Zivkovic, "Queering the Flâneur: Erotics, Synesthesia, and Gesture in Modernist Literature" (CSRE 200X: CSRE Senior Seminar / Instructors: Tomás Jiménez, Paula Moya, Vanessa Chang, and Casey Philip Wong)
Social Sciences
Catherine Lechicki, "The Scapegoat Ambassador: April Glaspie and the 1990 Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait" (INTNLREL 174: Diplomacy on the Ground: Case Studies in the Challenges of Representing Your Country / Instructor: Robert B. Rakove)
Engineering
Andrew Milich, "Memorandum To: National Security Advisor" (MS&E 193: Technology and National Security / Instructor: Siegfried S. Hecker)
Chase Porter, Ben Fearon, Devon Macneil, and Matthew Stevens, "Bipedal Robot Design Report" (ME 112: Mechanical Systems Design / Instructors: Mark R. Cutkosky and Paul Mitiguy)
Sciences
Lydia Tam, "Identifying the Cellular Origin and Enzymatic Mechanism of Activity-regulated Neuroligin-3 Secretion " (BIO 199W: Senior Honors Thesis / Instructors: Sally A. Kim and Meredith Course) [Note: Essay not available.]
2015-2016 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Bradley Emi, "A Modified Parfitian Survival Relation" (Philosophy 80: Mind, Matter, Meaning / Instructor: Ken Taylor)
Dana C. Ritchie, "D is for Deutschland: Germany, Typography, Identity" (German 116: Writing About Germany: New Topics, New Genres / Instructor: Karen Kramer)
Kevin Lee Sun, "Mythologizing as Playful Pedagogy: Rethinking the 'Socratic' Method" (Classics 150: Majors Seminar / Instructor: Jennifer Trimble)
Social Sciences
Santiago MartÍn Morales, "United States v. Anheuser Busch InBev and Grupo Modelo" (Economics 101: Economic Policy Seminar / Instructor: Cristian Santesteban)
Engineering
Niklaus H. Evitt and Shamik Mascharak, "CRISPR-Cas Germline Modification: Toward a Regulatory Framework" (Bioengineering 131: Ethics in Bioengineering / Instructors: Russ Altman and David Magnus)
Jamie Young, Alex le Roux, Jeff Sarsona & Aaron Oro, "Respect the Pouch: A Kangaroo Design Report" (Mechanical Engineering 1112: Mechanical Systems Design / Instructors: Mark Cutkosky and Paul Mitiguy)
Math
Zhaolin Ren, "An Exposition of the Banach-Tarski Paradox" (Mathematics 120, Groups and Rings / Instructor: Thomas Church)
2014-2015 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Laura A. Figueroa, "The Modern Nation in Colonial Korea: The Literary Construction of the Peasant Class as the Source of National Identity" (Korean General 120, Narratives of Modern and Contemporary Korea / Instructor: Dafna Zur)
Pearle Lun, "Being Matteo Ricci: Secular & Spiritual Pathways of a Jesuit in China" (History 209S, Research Seminar for Majors / Instructor: Nancy Kollmann)
Claire Patterson, "'The beginning is hers, the ending, mine': Cross-Cultural and -Generational Communication in The Woman Warrior" (American Studies 160, Perspectives on American Identity / Instructor: Judith Richardson)
Social Sciences
Abby Fanlo, "Ethno-Religious Composition of Colonial Security Forces and Post-Independence Civil Wars" (Political Science 212C: Civil War and International Politics: Syria in Context / Instructor: James Fearon)
Sciences
Candice Kim, "Methylation in Plants: The Chromatin-Remodeling Factor PICKLE in Arabidopsis Development" (Biology 137, Plant Genetics / Instructor: Virginia Walbot)
Engineering
Samuel Cady, "Quantifying Microbial Production of Fatty-Acid-Derived Biofuels" (Chemical Engineering 185A: Chemical Engineering Laboratory A / Instructor: Elizabeth Sattely)
Math
Brett Harvey, "The Delian Problem and Other Geometric Impossibilities of Antiquity" (Mathematics 120, Groups and Rings / Instructor: Ravi Vakil)
2013-2014 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Keegan Boyer, "Fanatics or Freedom Fighters? The Tomochic Rebellion in the Porfirian Press" (History 209S, Research Seminar for Majors / Instructor: Jennifer Burns)
Meredith Wheeler, "Moral Citizens: Coeducational Transformation at Stanford" (History 209S, Research Seminar for Majors / Estelle Freedman)
Samuel Klotz, "The Sublime, Terror, and the Mind" (Art History 294, Writing and the Visual / Instructor: Bryan Wolf)
Social Sciences
Jason Willick, "Human Dignity and the Limits of Toleration" (Ethics in Society 171, Justice / Instructor: Joshua Cohen)
Sciences
Amy Lanctot, "Engineering Future Foods: Methods of Transgene Targeting and Excision in GMO Technologies" (Biology 137, Plant Genetics / Instructor: Virginia Walbot)
Engineering
Karan Handa, Bryan Lopez, John McMordie, & Marco Solis, "If it Swims Like a Duck..." (Mechanical Engineering 112, Mechanical Systems Design / Instructor: Mark Cutkosky)
2012-2013 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Leow Hui Min Annabeth, "Rape, Religion, and Female Sexuality in Works by Artemisia Gentileschi and Tori Amos" (Feminist Studies 153, Women and the Creative Imagination / Instructor: Valerie Miner)
Bianca Dang, "Critical of Compromise: Henry McNeal Turner and the Rise of the Emigration Movement in Post-Civil War America" (History 209S, Research Seminar for Majors / Instructor: Allyson Hobbs)
Kelly Nguyen, "Les exilés de Troie à Paris" (French 132, Literature, Revolutions, and Changes in 19th- and 20th-Century France / Instructor: Biliana Kassabova)
John Steinbach, "Robert H. Jackson, Nuremberg, and the Spectacle of Wartime Tyranny" (History 209S, Research Seminar for Majors / Instructor: Carolyn Lougee Chappell)
Social Sciences
Benjamin Mercer-Golden, "Explaining Endless War: International Intervention and Centralized Power in Afghanistan" (Political Science 215, Explaining Ethnic Violence / Instructor: James Fearon)
Sciences
Corey Stein, "Defining the Riemann Integral and the Lebesgue Integral Through Abstract Metric Space Techniques" (Mathematics 171, Fundamental Concepts of Analysis / Instructor: Andras Vasy)
Daniel Trugman, "Get it Right or Go To Jail: A Review of Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis" (Geophysics 199, Senior Seminar: Issues in Earth Sciences / Instructors: Simon Klemperer and David Bird)
Guo Alfred Zong, "Determining the speed of light by measuring the beat frequency between adjacent axial modes of a He-Ne Fabry-Pérot laser" (Physics 107, Intermediate Physics Laboratory II: Experimental Techniques and Data Analysis / Instructor: David Goldhaber-Gordon)
2011-2012 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Nicholas Gardner, "Immediately Homer's Divinities" (Classics 176, Majors Seminar / Instructor: Jennifer Trimble)
Cassandra Nader, "The Performance of Mourning: Elegiac Conventions in Merill's 'Farewell Performance'" (English 160, Poetry and Poetics / Instructor: Christopher Rovee)
Kiah Thorn, "Algún Día’, pero no hoy: El racismo callado en Perú y el caso del Negro Mama" (Spanish 102, Composition and Writing Workshop / Instructor: Vivian Brates)
Social Sciences
Alexandra McKinney, "Lost, Found, and Lost Again? Crafting an Efficient Solution to Disputes over Stolen Art" (Public Policy 106, Economics of Legal Rules and Institutions / Instructor: Bruce Owen)
Sciences
Ian Ball, "Classification of Finite Abelian Groups" (Mathematics 120, Modern Algebra / Instructor: Soren Galatius)
Engineering
Daniel Reynolds, "Going Nuclear: Expanding nuclear power at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, Jenkinsville, South Carolina" (Management Science & Engineering 125W, Introduction to Decision Analysis / Instructor: Ross Shachter)
2010-2011 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Hwee Juin Lee, "L’analyse approfondie des buts de la quête dans Yvain, le Chevalier au lion" (French Literature 130, Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance French Literature / Instructor: Cécile Alduy)
David Rosenthal, "Androgyny as Liminality: a Psychoanalytic Reading of Achilles' Gender in the Iliad" (Classics 176, The Iliad, the Aeneid, and the Ancient Art of Persuasion / Instructor: Maud Gleason)
Eric Tuan, "Beyond the Cadence: Post-Cadential Extension in Ockeghem's Sacred Music" (Music 141, Studies in Renaissance Music / Instructor: Jesse Rodin)
Anne Warner, "Night and Fog and French Holocaust Memory" (History 209S, History and the Arts in Europe, 1500 - Present / Instructor: Carolyn Lougee Chappell)
Social Sciences
Edgardo Cervano-Soto, "Dragging The Main: Public Art, Memory and Race on a Downtown Street" (Urban Studies 203, Senior Seminar in Urban Studies / Instructor: Michael Kahan)
Sciences
Micol Marchetti-Bowick, "Charting the cortical wilderness: A probabilistic framework for synapse localization and class discovery in a mouse whisker barrel cortex" (Computer Science 191W, Senior Project / Instructor: Daphne Koller)
2009-2010 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Alice Hu, "A Perfect Storm: Pinkertons, the Evolution of Violence, and the Homestead Strike 1892" (History 209S, American Identities: Research Seminar in the Major / Instructor: Allyson Hobbs)
Jeffrey Gerson, "'The Spectres in Books': the Formatting of Walt Whitman's 1855 'Song of Myself' against the Norton Anthology" (English 160, Poetry and Poetics / Instructor: Nicholas Jenkins)
Social Sciences
Sarah Guerrero, "People Power 3.0? ICT, E-Government, and the Digital Divide in the Philippines" (International Relations 130, Science, Technology, and Development / Instructor: Gili S. Drori)
Sciences
Maria Gudmundsdottir, "The utility of bedrock incision models: How river channels encode information about active tectonics, and how and when we can decode it" (Geological & Environmental Sciences 150, Issues in the Earth Sciences: A Senior Seminar / Instructors: Anne Egger, Dennis Bird)
Robert Holley, "Getting Out Of Band: Internet Explorer and the XML Data Island Vulnerability" (Computer Science 181, Computers, Ethics, and Public Policy / Instructor: Maggie Johnson)
2008-2009 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Caroline Newton, "Against Alcibiades" (Classics 176, Two Epics and Five Systems of Knowledge / Instructor: Maud Gleason)
Justin Solomon, "Deconstructing the Definitive Recording: Elgar's Cello Concerto and the Influence of Jacqueline du Pré" (Music 149, Reactions to the Record: Early Recordings, Lost Styles, and Music's Future / Instructor: George Barth)
Social Sciences
Vera Eidelman, "Perfect 10 v. Google: It is Fair" (Economics 101, Economic Policy Analysis / Instructor: Gregory Rosston)
Sciences
David Lapham, "The Periodic Table" (Chemistry 134, Analytical Chemistry Laboratory / Instructor: Christopher R. Moylan)
Jeffrey Wang, "Fundamental Theorem of Finite Abelian Groups" (Mathematics 120, Modern Algebra / Instructor: Ravi Vakil)
Engineering
Russell Patton, "Recommendations for Improving ClipCase Product" (Engineering 102M, Technical Writing for Mechanical Engineers / Instructors: Evelin Sullivan and Mary McDevitt)
2007-2008 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Anne Felice Foisie Schiff, "From Ciceronian to Christian: Literary Conversion in Jerome and Augustine" (Classics 176, Exemplary Lives / Instructor: Maud Gleason)
Joanthan D. Scrafford, “La globalización de la ética: Análisis filosófico de la universalidad de la ética humana" (Spanish Language 102, Composition and Writing Workshop / Instructor: Caridad Kenna)
Social Sciences
Mackenzie A. Banks, "Immigration and Public Opinion: The Influence of the Media" (Economics 101, Economic Policy Analysis / Instructor: Manuela Angelucci)
Kristina Yang, "An Economic Analysis of Veterans' Compensation Law" (Public Policy 106, Economic Analysis of Law and Legal Institutions / Instructor: Bruce Owen)
Sciences
Katy Meadows, "Using Semi-Direct Products to Classify Groups of Order 20" (Mathematics 120, Modern Algebra / Instructor: Jun Li)
Engineering
Juliet Rothenberg, "Clean Coal Innovation" (Management Science and Engineering 152, Introduction to Decision Analysis / Instructor: Ross Shachter)
2006-2007 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
William Cheng, “Hermeneutics of Autobiography and Programme in Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy” (Music 148 Musical Shakespeare: Theater, Song, Opera, Film / Instructor: Professor Thomas Grey)
Claire Liu, “Music in U.S.-China Diplomacy” (History 256, History of U.S.-China Relations / Instructor: Professor Gordon Chang)
Social Sciences
Robert A. Fuentes, “Rebellion and Revolution in Central America: The Honduran Exception” (Political Science 215, Explaining Ethnic Violence / Instructor Professor James Fearon)
Engineering
Alexander R. Steiner, “Temperature-Dependence of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Performance” (Chemical Engineering 185, Chemical Engineering Laboratory / Instructors: Professor Lisa Hwang and Professor Curtis Frank)
Roseanne Warren, “Pede-Stool Design and Manufacturing Project” (Engineering 102M, Technical/Professional Writing for Mechanical Engineers / Instructor: Professor David Lougee; in conjunction Mechanical Engineering 203, Manufacturing and Design / Instructor: Professor David Beach)
2005-2006 Hoefer Prize Winners
Humanities
Jennifer Rose Carr, " ‹‹ Ce grand livre ››: Objets intennionnels dans Zadig" (French Literature 131, Absolutism, Enlightenment, and Revolution in 17th and 18th Century France / Instructor: Dan Edelstein)
Eugenie Kim, "Popularization and Conservatism: Audience and Intent in Sprat's The History of the Royal Society" (History 232F, The Scientific Revolution / Instructor: Paula Findlen)
Social Sciences
Nicole Alia Salis, "A Misuse of Equal Protection: The Doe v. Kamehameha Schools Case" (Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity 200X, Senior Seminar / Instructor: C. Matthew Snipp)
Sciences
Ellen Theresa Gray, "Three Hypotheses for the Causes of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum: A Fifty-Five Million Year Old Mystery" (Geological and Environmental Sciences 150, Issues in the Earth Sciences / Instructors: Anne Egger and Dennis Bird)
Laure Sierra Katz, "Sails, Sharks, and Stomachaches: My Voyage Through the Pacific" (Earth Systems 210, Senior Seminar / Instructor: Julie Kennedy)
Continue to archive of winners prior to 2005 (no essays available)