Undergraduate Essay Awards List

2025-26 Peter Rotter Writing Prize
Name Prize Essay Title
Chutian Shi Peter Rotter Writing Prize “Chapter 1, “Unseen Orders,” from senior thesis, Translating Grief, Fracturing Selves: Itō Shizuo’s Elegies to My Beloved and its Rilkean Poetics”
Xiaodan (Cindy) Cheng 2025 Peter Rotter First-Year Writing Prize “The Diversity Paradox: ATCKs and the Injustice of Missing Data at UCLA”
2025-26 Tom Davey Science Writing Prize
Name Prize Essay Title
Ava Vehemente 2025 Tom Davey Science Writing Prize “A Critical Analysis of Physicalist Theories of Consciousness in the Context of Down Syndrome Neurobiology”
2025-26 Teague-Melville Writing Prize
Name Prize Essay Title
Tara Barr 2026 Teague-Melville Writing Prize “Beyond Discipline: Documenting Post-Panoptic Surveillance in Natalie Bookchin’s  Mass Ornament (2009)”
Mason Ng 2026 Teague-Melville Writing Prize “Organizing against the Algorithm: Motivations and Strategies amongst Rideshare Drivers”
Jashan Mahajan 2026 Teague-Melville Writing Prize “The Search for Consciousness”
2024-25 Peter Rotter Writing Prize
Name Prize Essay Title
Avery Ngo 2025 Peter Rotter Writing Prize “Beauvoir and Abortion”
Yueyang Liu 2025 Peter Rotter Writing Prize “Toxic Discourse: The Case of the Palestine Solidarity Encampment at UCLA”
Zaid Bustami 2024 Peter Rotter Writing Prize “Wilshire Boulevard:  A Tale of the Privileged
and the Oppressed”
Max Davis-Housefield 2024 Peter Rotter First-Year Writing Prize “Proxima b and the Search for a Habitable World”
Elisa Di 2024 Peter Rotter First-Year Writing Prize “The Silent Symphony:  Unveiling the Artistry of Punctuation in Prose”
2024-25 Tom Davey Science Writing Prize
Name Prize Essay Title
Manasi Vartak 2025 Tom Davey Science Writing Prize “Implementing Green Infrastructure Near Industrial Zones in Los Angeles County: A Versatile Initiative to Combat Food Insecurity”
Nathan Brice 2024 Tom Davey Science Writing Prize “The Edge of Memory”
2024-25 Teague-Melville Writing Prize
Name Prize Essay Title
Samuel Matsumoto 2025 Teague-Melville Writing Prize “The Role of Eugenics in the Scopes Trial”
Micah Hoffman 2025 Teague-Melville Writing Prize “On Writing”
Kiersta Donnelly 2025 Teague-Melville Writing Prize “Tucker Carlson’s Populist Playbook”
Catie Long 2024 Teague-Melville Writing Prize “Rewire, Reframe, Rewrite:  Gender and Mechanicity in Thrilling Adventures
and Hidden Figures”
Natalie Tsubamoto 2024 Teague-Melville Writing Prize “CAR T Cell Therapy – The future of cancer treatment?”
Victor Xie 2024 Teague-Melville Writing Prize “Embracing the Posthuman:  Subverting Techno-Orientalism and Reclaiming Asian Futurity
in Light from Uncommon Stars and Salt Fish Girl“