Tom Davey Science Writing Essay Prize

The Tom Davey memorial fund awards one annual prize to the finest undergraduate research writing produced in a science-based course, including classes in Humanities, STEM, and Social Sciences. The nominated student can be at any point in their academic career; they do not have to be majoring in the sciences.

Tom Davey was born in Devon in southern England and immigrated from Plymouth to Edmonton, Canada when he was five. He left school in 8^th grade, worked in the coal mines, and then immigrated to Southern California around age 18. He became an upholsterer, but nobody got their furniture reupholstered during the Great Depression, so he became a migrant farm worker, traveling as far as Kansas to harvest watermelon (which he would forever afterward refuse to eat). Eventually, he got a steady job at Pacific Bell and bought a house in Santa Ana. He had two daughters and four grandchildren, the youngest of whom teaches in Writing Programs and began an essay prize in his honor because Tom Davey was a great communicator. He talked to everyone he met, and they usually found a common interest or mutual friend. And he could sit down and write a funny rhyming poem on any subject; just ask. He said “bloody” too often to be polite, but he also taught his granddaughter about what a “money gleaner” was when he wrote her a poem about rain.

The 2021 prize winners were honored via a virtual awards ceremony. Please view the presentation here. 

Tom Davey Science Writing Prize ($400)
WINNER: Grace Yang, “2020: At Least You’re Not a Banana” nominated by Gregory Rubinson for EC130C

Congratulations to our award winner!

2020 Winners

The 2020 prize winners were honored via a virtual awards ceremony. Please view the presentation here.

Maddy Krohn (nominated by Dr. Rubinson, Writing Programs) “Pigpens, Pollution, & Paradigms: The Menace of Factory Farming and Why Laboratory-Grown Meat is the Future We Need”