Sin-ming Shaw ’65 Award for Excellence

Senior paper prize: 1,000 Euros for your academic excellence 

The Sin-ming Shaw ’65 Award for Excellence, which carries a monetary prize of 1,000 euros, is conferred each year on a graduating senior for an outstanding final paper. The intention is to inspire you to think across disciplines and to combine creativity and academic rigor in your work.

AUP alumnus Sin-ming Shaw is a former member of AUP’s Board of Trustees and a recipient of the 2002 Distinguished Service Alumni Award. He also worked as a professional investor and has been a visiting fellow at Oxford, Harvard, Columbia and Princeton. The Award for Excellence was established on his initiative in 1997 and many outstanding students have benefited from it in the decades since.  

Recent winning papers include:

• Yelena Menard: “Indigenous Rights Beyond International Law: Sami of Sweden and the Challenge of Legal Recognition in Domestic Court”
• Paulina Trigos: “Sueños y Quimeras / Dreams and Chimeras - A Memoir"
• Lynn Elhadjali: "Shifting Tides: The Unheard Tales of Syrian Refugees in the Face of Lebanon’s Water Crisis"
• Jasmine Cowen: "Japanese Buddhist Funerary Rites in America: Internment, Integration, and the Negotiation of Japanese-American Identities," and William Ihrig: Outside Impressionism: Naturalist Responses to Modernity,”
• Anita Maksymchuk  “A Critical Analysis of ICT4D* in Sub-Saharan Africa through a Comparison of Modernization Theory”
• Lilly Schreiter "Demain and its Network: A Magazine's Fight Against the Great War"

Audrey Michels, the 2016 winner, said: “For me, applying for the Sin-ming Shaw Award was a culmination of my three years at AUP and a chance to put my best and most passionate work in front of a committee of people I respect and admire. I grew so much and had so much fun creating my senior thesis with Professor Gilbert that the opportunity to share our work with others, alongside the papers of my incredible peers, was a fantastic way to celebrate what we’d all achieved that year. Winning was wonderful and I received many kind words from professors and friends after the ceremony, but participating was even better.”

Your submission should have been written or produced for an upper-level course during your last two regular undergraduate terms at AUP prior to graduation. In order to enter, you only need to submit a paper you have already written.

Good luck! The faculty looks forward to reading your submissions.

How is the prize awarded?

The award is given for a senior paper that meets the award criteria for academic rigor and creativity. A selection committee composed of members of the faculty will choose the awardee. 

GUIDELINES FOR THE SIN-MING SHAW ’65 AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE

• You may submit only one paper for the prize;
• Your submission should have been written or produced for an upper level course (numbered 3000 or above) during your last two regular undergraduate terms at AUP prior to graduation

TO APPLY FOR THE AWARD, SUBMIT THE FOLLOWING: 

• A digital copy of your paper
• An unofficial transcript that includes your most recent grades.

Please send your documents to Brenda Torney in the Office of Academic Affairs (btorneyaup.edu). They must be in her hands no later than May 7, 2021. Please make sure that you provide the Office with an address, telephone number or e-mail where you can be contacted.

The Sin-ming Shaw ’65 Award for Excellence Faculty Review Committee looks forward to your participation and to reviewing your intellectual accomplishments. 
 

PREVIOUS SIN-MING SHAW ’65 AWARD RECIPIENTS:

• 2024 – Yelena Menard: “Indigenous Rights Beyond International Law: Sami of Sweden and the Challenge of Legal Recognition in Domestic Court”
• 2023 – Paulina Trigos: “Sueños y Quimeras / Dreams and Chimeras - A Memoir"
• 2022 – Lynn Elhadjali: "Shifting Tides: The Unheard Tales of Syrian Refugees in the Face of Lebanon’s Water Crisis"
• 2021 – Jasmine Cowen: "Japanese Buddhist Funerary Rites in America: Internment, Integration, and the Negotiation of Japanese-American Identities," and William Ihrig: Outside Impressionism: Naturalist Responses to Modernity,”
• 2020 – Anita Maksymchuk  “A Critical Analysis of ICT4D* in Sub-Saharan Africa through a Comparison of Modernization Theory”
• 2019 – Lilly Schreiter "Demain and its Network: A Magazine's Fight Against the Great War"
• 2018 – Sarah Thomas: "Sexual Dissidents in US Asylum Law." Read the full 2018 Committee Award Statement (pdf) including all honorable mentions
• 2017 – Kendra Mills: “Three Contradictions of Women’s Rights in Rwanda: Redefining Identity, Power, and Elitism”
• 2016 – Audrey Michels: “A Lost Generation of Lost Boys” and Amanda Skaar: “The Malagasy Sovereign Rating”
• 2015 – Jerusalem Parsons “I & I: Irigaray, Writing, and Female Identity”
• 2014 – Dana Kianfar: “Handshake Application” and Monica Sellidj: “The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Dispute”
• 2013 – Lucile Culver: “(De)-Constructing Knighthood: An Examination of the Spatiality of Chivalry in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Romance of Tristan”
• 2012 – Mona Reiserer: “Illustrating David Grossman’s Momik” and Alban Demiraj and Anas Bouzoubaa: “Can Collecting Autonomous Mobil Robot”
• 2011 – Sophia Bogner: “Kafka and the Fly Bottle”
• 2010 – Lilyana Yankova: “Virginia Woolf and the Art of Collage”
• 2009 – Jan Steyn: “The Guilty Goddess of My Harmful Deeds”
• 2008 – Caroline Klaeth Eriksen: “Compulsory Religious Education in Norwegian Public Schools – Violating the Human Rights of Minorities and Trespassing the Margin of Appreciation”
• 2007 – Julie Leitz: “Bilingualism as a Lifestyle Factor: The Protective Effect of Speaking Two Languages”
• 2006 – Maya Stoilova: “Images of the Middle Ages in A la Recherche du temps perdu”
• 2005 – Elif Eren “Swoosh: Nike and the Paradigm of Consumer Belief”
• 2004 – Caroline Laurent: “Writing the Holocaust: the Self, the Real, and Trauma”
• 2003 – Anna Kazantseva: “Webgeni, a Website Generating Tool for AUP Student Publications”
• 2002 – Nils Schott: “Peut-on imaginer un repas sans Badoit ? The Genre of the Catechism, Ulysses and the Failure of Epiphany”
• 2001 – Alex Kunadze: “The Student Government Network Broadcasting and Communication System”
• 2000 – Lauren Anderson
• 1999 – Karyn Heavner 
• 1998 – Natalia Lechmanova, Leigh Thomas, Katrin Wirth
• 1997 – Monica Heslington, Marta Lee Perriard, Jason Wood