Undergraduate Writers’ Conference
The Undergraduate Writers’ Conference (UWC) is a partnership between USC’s Office of Academic Programs and The Writing Program. The purpose of the event is to share and celebrate writing from current undergraduate students across all fields of study and offer a space to receive feedback from peers and faculty. All participants will submit one piece of writing that represents their best work. Participation in at least two sessions throughout conference day in addition to the awards ceremony is required to remain eligible for prize consideration.
Undergraduate Writers’ Conference: Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Awards Dinner: Thursday, April 18, 2024
Registration Form Closed
The deadline has been extended and will remain open until Friday, March 8th at 11:59PM (PST), or until capacity is reached.
Keynote Address:
Laura Warrell is the author of Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, and long-listed for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Lit Hub, Los Angeles Review of Books, Huffington Post, and other publications.
Laura graduated from the Creative Writing Program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and has attended residencies at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Tin House Writer’s Workshop. She lives in Los Angeles.
Featured Publishing Panelists:
Creative Publishing Panel:
Alexis Landau is a graduate of Vassar College and received an MFA from Emerson College and PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. She is the author of the novels The Empire of the Senses and Those Who Are Saved and the forthcoming The Mother of All Things (May 7, 2024). She teaches writing at USC and lived with her husband and two children in Los Angeles.
Catherine Theis is the author of the poetry collection The Fraud of Good Sleep and the play MEDEA. Slashing Sounds, her translation of the Italian poet Jolanda Insana, is forthcoming Fall 2024 from the University of Chicago Press’ Phoenix Poets series. She teaches at the University of Southern California.
Academic and Nonfiction Publishing Panel:
Sarah Mesle is an Associate Professor (Teaching) in USC’s Writing Program. She’s the former Senior Humanities Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the founding editor of the digital magazine Avidly and the NYU Press book series Avidly Reads. Her criticism and profiles have appeared in venues ranging from LARB to InStyle Magazine to the New York Times. She has two books forthcoming: Reasons and Feelings: A Guide for Academics Writing in Hard Times (Chicago UP) and a collection of essays called Tangled: American Racism and White Women’s Hair (Beacon Press).
Dr. Trisha Tucker is an Associate Teaching Professor of Writing. She serves as Head of Writing Instruction in the Thematic Option Honors Program and Faculty in Residence in the McCarthy Honors College. Dr. Tucker worked as a journalist in the film, fashion, and the travel industries before returning to school to earn her Ph.D. in English. Her recent scholarship traces the ways in which eighteenth- and nineteenth-century beliefs about childhood underly justifications of contemporary books bans. Other scholarly and pedagogical interests include nineteenth-century British literature, Evangelicalism and Evangelical reading practices, supporting first-year student learning and the transition to college, general education pedagogy and curriculum, and building communities of trust and engagement in the classroom.
Juried Workshop Leaders:
Michelle Brittan Rosado is the author of Why Can’t It Be Tenderness, which won the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018). Her chapbook, Theory on Falling into a Reef, was the winner of the inaugural Rick Campbell Prize (Anhinga Press, 2016). Individual poems have been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, Indiana Review, Poet Lore, and The New Yorker, as well as anthologies like Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience. Having earned an MFA in Creative Writing from California State University, Fresno, and a PhD in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Southern California, she has received awards and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, Community of Writers, Sustainable Arts Foundation, USC’s Center for Transpacific Studies, and the Vermont Studio Center. Currently a professor in The Writing Program at USC, she lives with her family in Long Beach.
Mitra Parineh is a writer and faculty lecturer in the Writing Program at USC. Her short fiction and essays have been published in literary journals and popular magazines including most recently in the New Orleans Review and Frenshe. She is at work on a heist-romance novel about teenagers in Silicon Valley.
Michelle Meyers is a Lecturer in the Writing Program at USC and the Community Engagement Liaison for the USC Dornsife Prison Education Project. She was a 2015 PEN Center Emerging Voices Fellow in Fiction, and her novel Glass Shatters was selected as an Editor’s Pick in Literary Fiction by Foreword Reviews. She graduated with a BA in Literary Arts from Brown University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama. She is a Los Angeles native.
Past Student Winners Panel
- Jonathan Hayden
- Megan Dang
- Will Erens
Program Details
USC’s Office of Academic Programs and The Writing Program present the 21st annual Undergraduate Writers’ Conference on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Awards ceremony to follow on Thursday, April 18, 2024.
- Schedule
- Eligibility
- Writing Category Descriptions
- Submission Formatting
- Judging & Prizes
- How to Register
Conference Schedule
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Conference Kick-Off (9:00am-9:50am TCC 450 “The Forum”)
Join us for a breakfast meet and greet where students will have the opportunity to do a free writing exercise and engage in lively discussions about writing.
Keynote Address featuring Laura Warrell (10:00am-11:30am TCC 450)
Enjoy a keynote address from an inspirational writer and light breakfast to officially kick-off conference day. There will be time for Q & A as well as a raffle of the author’s books for those in attendance.
Open Mic (12:00pm-12:50pm TCC 450)
Share your Writer’s Conference submission or cheer on fellow writers from the audience during this writer’s showcase.
Past UWC Winners Panel (1:00pm-1:50pm TCC 450)
Previous Undergraduate Writers’ Conference winners will share excerpts from their winning submissions and unique approaches to writing.
Academic and Nonfiction Publishing Panel (2:00pm-2:50pm TCC 450)
Professional writers share their experiences and insights on the path to getting academic and nonfiction work published. Featured panelists: Professor Sarah Mesle and Professor Trisha Tucker
Creative Publishing Panel (3:00pm-3:50pm PST TCC 450)
Professional writers share their experiences and insights learned on the path to getting creative work published. Featured panelists: Professor Alexis Landau and Professor Catherine Theis
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Juried Workshop: Writing from Listening (10:00am-11:30am)
Participation in this workshop is upon acceptance by the workshop leader. If you are interested in participating, please indicate your interest on your registration form.
A fiction workshop oriented around dialogue and “hearing” our characters. Putting words in the mouths of characters and animating them through spoken language, dialect, syntax, and diction is one of the most fun ways to approach and begin to understand a character, giving them life and resonance on the page. When we build dialogue we also create subtext and layered meaning.
Juried Workshop: How to Be in Two Places at Once – A Generative Writing Workshop (12:30pm-2:00pm)
Participation in this workshop is upon acceptance by the workshop leader. If you are interested in participating, please indicate your interest on your registration form.
Have you ever wished you could be in two places at once? This generative writing workshop will encourage participants to engage with poetry as a genre of connection, by utilizing metaphor to leap from one geographical location to another. The workshop will involve gathering sensory details outdoors, recording what we can see, smell, hear, taste, or touch in our immediate surroundings. Returning indoors, participants will be invited to generate a poem draft that connects a sensory detail they observed to another place, which can be an imagined scene or pulled from memory. The workshop will conclude with encouraging feedback and ideas for expanding these drafts into revised poems.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Celebration Dinner & Awards Ceremony (6:00pm-8:00pm USC Town & Gown Ballroom)
Join us for a celebration dinner with all Undergraduate Writers’ Conference and Undergraduate Research Symposium participants. The most outstanding works will be recognized with First Prizes of $1000 and Second Prizes of $500.
Potential Online Publication
All participants gain automatic consideration for publication in Scribe, the USC Dornsife online journal produced by undergraduates, and Outstanding Academic Papers by Students (OAPS), an academic research libraries program that preserves excellence in student scholarship.
Friday, April 19, 2024
Juried Workshop: Narrative Techniques and the Academic Essay (10:30am-12:00pm)
Participation in this workshop is upon acceptance by the workshop leader. If you are interested in participating, please indicate your interest on your registration form.
In this workshop, students will learn more about applying narrative techniques oftentimes used in fiction and creative nonfiction to academic writing, such as sensory details, figurative language, varied sentence length, and attention to style/voice. Students will consider the ways in which academic writing is a form of storytelling and how using the above narrative techniques can help to engage readers as they complete exercises and group activities together. In the final 30 minutes of the workshop, students will try applying these techniques to a piece of academic writing that they have brought in.
Eligibility
To be eligible, entrants must:
- Be a current undergraduate student at USC,
- Complete an online registration form that includes a 300-500 word Writer’s Statement and submission of one piece of writing in one writing style category, and
- Commit to attend at least two sessions on the day of the Writer’s Conference in addition to the Celebration dinner in order to maintain eligibility for prize consideration.
- No group writing submissions will be accepted.
Writing Category Descriptions
Please submit one piece of writing in one of the four categories offered:
- Fiction and Memoir (30 pages max) – can include short stories, screenplays, excerpts from longer fictional works, memoirs, and personal essays
- Poetry (up to 10 poems, combined 30 pages max)
- Academic Writing (30 pages max) – humanities and journalism
- Academic Writing (30 pages max) – social and hard science as well as business
All submissions may also be considered for the USC Schwarzenegger Institute Award and Sustainability Award when the writing topic aligns with award criteria.
Submissions for the juried workshops will also be considered upon request.
Submission Formatting
Submissions must adhere to the following format parameters:
- Fiction and Memoir (30 pages max) – can include short stories, screenplays, excerpts from longer fictional works, memoirs, and personal essays
- Poetry (up to 10 poems, combined 30 pages max)
- Academic Writing (30 pages max) – humanities and journalism
- Academic Writing (30 pages max) – social and hard science as well as business
- Double-spaced, 12pt font, is the preferred format with the exception of poetry and screenwriting
- Submissions must be in English
- PDF format only
- There is a 1000MB/1GB limit for each submission
Judging & Prizes
Judges are USC faculty members primarily from the USC Writing Program, Schwarzenegger Institute and Office of Sustainability. Each category has a panel of 2-6 judges, who are assigned based on their respective expertise in each of the writing categories.
The judges will award the following prizes:
- First Prize (All Categories): One $1000 First Prize will be awarded in each of the four writing categories.
- Second Prize (All Categories): One $500 Second Prize will be awarded in each of the four writing categories. USC Schwarzenegger Institute Award: The USC Schwarzenegger Institute will also award one $1000 First Prize and one $500 Second Prize to students whose work proposes real-world solutions to serious policy challenges and improves the lives of people and communities with regard to issues in Environment & Energy, or Political Reform & Voter access, or Terminate hate.
- Sustainability Award: One $1000 First Prize and one $500 Second Prize to students whose work addresses understanding the challenges and solutions related to climate change and other environmental issues that impact the well-being of people and the planet. In line with President Folt’s vision for a more sustainable USC, we encourage submissions related to sustainability and sustainable solutions, including topics such as (but not limited to): biodiversity loss, environmental pollution, climate change, environmental justice and sustainable design.
Prize Claims
An Undergraduate Writers’ Conference Prize is disbursed as a stipend in the spring as a check issued to the student. This may affect student financial aid packages. Students are encouraged to email the Financial Aid Office through the askUSC portal to discuss the potential effects of a Prize. The award could adversely affect students with Pell grants and/or loans.
Join us for the 2024 Undergraduate Writers’ Conference!
The deadline has been extended and will remain open until Friday, March 8th at 11:59PM (PST), or until capacity is reached.
Remember to mark your application as complete and hit the green “SUBMIT” button. You will receive an email confirmation upon successful submission.
Upcoming Dates & Deadlines
There are no upcoming events at this time.
Prize Recipients
Each year, the Undergraduate Writers’ Conference awards First and Second prizes for outstanding work in each of the four writing categories. Additional recognition includes Honorable Mentions and awards from the USC Schwarzenegger Institute and Office of Sustainability.
| Student Name | Year | Award Category | Award Type | Project Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maya Reyna | 2021 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | I'd Rather Live Through "La Chona" Than Laud "Choral" |
| Sydney Gamble | 2021 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | Constructive Criticism and the Counter-Work |
| Emma Taulli | 2021 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | Nature Trumps Nurture: The Individual as Property Under Capitalism in Orphan Black |
| Alia Atkins | 2021 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | Another Other |
| Lela Ni | 2021 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | The Radius of Grief |
| Ryan Nhu | 2021 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Spare Change |
| Alexis Pinela | 2021 | Moral Reasoning/Professional | 1st Prize | Window into Wiradjuri Life |
| Keon Sanaie | 2021 | Moral Reasoning/Professional | 2nd Prize | Condemn the Monster, Condone the Art |
| Mia Speier | 2021 | Moral Reasoning/Professional | Honorable Mention | The Question of Intervention: Obama, Qadhafi and Operation Odyssey Dawn |
| Mahima Chillakanti | 2021 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | A Community-Centric Approach to Typhoon Preparedness and Risk Management: Beta-testing Bayanihan' in Catanduanes, Philippines |
| Manushri Desai | 2021 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | A Community-Centric Approach to Typhoon Preparedness and Risk Management: Beta-testing Bayanihan' in Catanduanes, Philippines |
| Mihir Kumar | 2021 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | A Community-Centric Approach to Typhoon Preparedness and Risk Management: Beta-testing Bayanihan' in Catanduanes, Philippines |
| Cameron Levine | 2021 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | A Community-Centric Approach to Typhoon Preparedness and Risk Management: Beta-testing Bayanihan' in Catanduanes, Philippines |
| Nika Shroff | 2021 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | A Community-Centric Approach to Typhoon Preparedness and Risk Management: Beta-testing Bayanihan' in Catanduanes, Philippines |
| Rosa Noriega-Rocha | 2021 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | The racial formation of fresa ville: the ongoing racialization and objectification of Indigenous farmworkers in Watsonville |
| Elizabeth Nguyen | 2021 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | A Review on the Role of iPSCs and Chimera-Based Approaches to Pancreatic Islet Transplantation in Treatment for Diabetes Mellitus |
| Natalie Briones | 2021 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | Long Lines, Crowded Places: Early Voting Access in Texas |
| Pratik Thakur | 2021 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 2nd Prize | Improving Health in South Los Angeles by Reducing Local Oil Development |
| Finley Davis | 2021 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | Honorable Mention | Reforms to the issues of prison gerrymandering in the state of Louisiana |
| Lucy Allen | 2020 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | Totally Free: Pleasure and Liberation in The Living End |
| Megan Ritchie | 2020 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | Politicizing Scots: An Exploration of the Use of Dialect in Literature |
| Dara Phung | 2020 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | Exclusionary Zoning: An Illness of Many Symptoms |
| Joseph Debaerien | 2020 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | Bus Stop Poems |
| Lela Ni | 2020 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | The Art of the In-Between |
| Shirin Herzig | 2020 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | yet here we are (alive) |
| Ryan Nhu | 2020 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Blown: Fragments |
| Catherine Knox | 2020 | Professional/Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | Implementing Ethics in Transboundary Water Management |
| Hailey Robertson | 2020 | Professional/Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | Leveraging Freedom Against Motherhood: A Case Study of U.S v. Summer Thyme Creel and Sterilization as a Sentencing Mitigation Factor |
| Kurtis Weatherford | 2020 | Professional/Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | Coming Down from the Mountains: John Major and the Decision to Intervene in Iraq |
| Ellen Murray | 2020 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | Aesthetic Decolonization: Magic Realism and Rewriting Postcolonial Trauma in Briar Grace-Smith's Purapurawhet? |
| Manushri Desai | 2020 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | A Holistic Approach to Treating Obstetric Fistulas: Beta-testing 'RESTORE' in the Gumla District of Jharkhand, India |
| Mihir Kumar | 2020 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | A Holistic Approach to Treating Obstetric Fistulas: Beta-testing 'RESTORE' in the Gumla District of Jharkhand, India |
| Mahima Chillakanti | 2020 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | A Holistic Approach to Treating Obstetric Fistulas: Beta-testing 'RESTORE' in the Gumla District of Jharkhand, India |
| Nika Shroff | 2020 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | A Holistic Approach to Treating Obstetric Fistulas: Beta-testing 'RESTORE' in the Gumla District of Jharkhand, India |
| Jason Collines | 2020 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Becoming Graceful Figures: The Gothic and Moral Epistemology in the Nineteenth-Century British Novel |
| Jacob Lester | 2020 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | Air Pollution in the United States: Pertinent Trends and Policy Prescriptions |
| Alexis Areias | 2020 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 2nd Prize | A Proposal to Eliminate Gerrymandering in Texas |
| Jack Strauss | 2019 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | It's All Part of the Plan: The CCP's Playbook for Homogenizing Chinese Society |
| Amanda Douglas | 2019 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | Artemesia Gentileschi's Susanna and the Elders: A Missing Link in Poussin's Chain of Artistic Lineages |
| Laura Russell | 2019 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | It's Life or Death: The Legal Dangers of Expletive "It" |
| Adam Karelin | 2019 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | The Portrayal of Russian Messianism through Binary Contrasts in Vasily Grossman's Hell of Treblinka |
| Annie Ly | 2019 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | Analysis of Jacobean Witchcraft Plays: Witchcraft as a Mechanism of Resolution |
| Kanak Kapur | 2019 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | Girls: Poems |
| Zoe Correa | 2019 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | Nena |
| Jensen McRae | 2019 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | Manic Pixie American Dream |
| Simran Jehani | 2019 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | The Skimmer Short Film |
| Yijing Luo | 2019 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Trembling Through |
| Yi Youn Kim | 2019 | Professional/Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | Killing Affirmative Action Won't Fix Harvard's Prejudiced Admissions |
| Manushri Desai | 2019 | Professional/Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | Disability Rights in LDCs: Increasing accountability and transparency of USAID through DPOs |
| Noor Alwani | 2019 | Professional/Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | Does Humanitarian Action Prolong Conflict? |
| Mai Mizuno | 2019 | Professional/Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | Orange Juice with a Side of Police Brutality |
| Anna Lipscomb | 2019 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | Taste of Asia: Gastrodiplomacy in Thailand, South Korea, and Taiwan |
| Lillian Dyre | 2019 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Malnutrition in India: A Case Study of Rural and Urban Regions |
| Rae Lan | 2019 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Malnutrition in India: A Case Study of Rural and Urban Regions |
| Aarohi Mahableshwarkar | 2019 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Malnutrition in India: A Case Study of Rural and Urban Regions |
| Dustin Chi Kan Wong | 2019 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Creating an LA Metro Rider's Experience |
| Chandler Zausner | 2019 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | The Manga is the Message: Redrawing Social Boundaries for Japan's Hikikomori Youth |
| Hannah Hunt | 2019 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | "Senator, We Run Ads": Facebook Advertisements and Political Microtargeting |
| Diana Kruzman | 2019 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | A Toxic Breeze |
| Angelina Sophonpanich | 2018 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | Hearing History: Iterations of Modern Identity Politics in Philip Metres' "Sand Opera" and Monica Ong's "Silent Anatomies" |
| Max Kapur | 2018 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | "When I Turn into a Leaf and Empty Myself": Trees, Transcendence, and the Ecopoetic Imagination in Contemporary Korean Poetry |
| Garrison Hall | 2018 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | A Theoretical Analysis of Gonzales v. Carhart |
| Kanak Kapur | 2018 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | In the Kitchen |
| Jensen McRae | 2018 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | Requiem for Bundy |
| Diana Postolache | 2018 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | scrap metal & white space |
| Olivia Steinkamp | 2018 | Professional / Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | Wandering Thoughtfully Through the 21st Century: The Evolution of Benjamin's Flaneur |
| Mary Hickman | 2018 | Professional / Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | Spanish Politics and Religious Monuments: The Case of the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba |
| Sonali Seth | 2018 | Professional / Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | "The Library Cad of Morning Glory High" Memorandum |
| Rosebud Campion | 2018 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | Forging the Folk: The Development of a National Musical Identity in Edwardian England |
| Lauren Brackmann | 2018 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Arctic Stewardship: Treaties and Regimes |
| Hanna Fahsholtz | 2018 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Arctic Stewardship: Treaties and Regimes |
| Alanna Schenk | 2018 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Arctic Stewardship: Treaties and Regimes |
| Alejandro Schugurensky | 2018 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Charter Schools and the Growing Opportunity Gap in California |
| Robert Tseng | 2018 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | 1st Prize | Linkage between business ethical values and access to capital: Comparative analysis of Kyrgyzstan, China, and the United Stat |
| Brianna Johnson | 2018 | USC Levan Institute - Moral Decision-Making | 1st Prize | "Mother, May I Come?": Angela Merkel and the 2015 European Refugee Crisis |
| Laura Russell | 2018 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | 1st Prize | Linguistic Conmen: Issues and Ethics on the Witness Stand |
| Oliver Dare | 2018 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | 1st Prize | The Surveillance Game: How to Hide from Surveillance Seekers in the Modern Era |
| Sebastian Walter Young | 2018 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | Blackouts and Bills |
| Alexandra Demetriou | 2018 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 2nd Prize | Seeking a cure for Governmentitis |
| Antonia Matias-Bell | 2017 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | Compression, Expansion, Magic, and Loss: Digitization in Museums |
| Anastasia Barbato | 2017 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | Technically Feminine: A Study of the Role of the Female Android in Fritz Lang's Metropolis |
| Max Kapur | 2017 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | Four Glimpses of Han in Lisa Lee's Fiction |
| Xueyou Wang | 2017 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | Stories about my father |
| Nathaniel Gualtieri | 2017 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | Imperfect Machines |
| Karen Garcia | 2017 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Metamorphosis |
| Will Drickey | 2017 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Parabellum |
| Soobin Kim | 2017 | Professional / Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | Bus Shelters in Los Angeles |
| Blair Thoman | 2017 | Professional / Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | Acquisition of Consent in Harmony Korine's Kids |
| Jennifer Smart | 2017 | Professional / Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Forget the Bomb |
| Bethany Balchunas | 2017 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | Codifying Exoticism: Race and French Colonial Policy in West Africa, 1910 to 1918 |
| Jacob Silverman | 2017 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | "I Looked and Looked but Failed to See What So Terrified You": Agency and the Double Self in Junot Díaz's This Is How You Lose Her |
| Morgan Mamon | 2017 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Ibn Khald?n in Translation: An Examination of J?l in Franz Rosenthal's Muqaddimah |
| Trevor Kehrer | 2017 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | 1st Prize | Opening Pandora's Box |
| Bailee Ahern | 2017 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | 2nd Prize | The Radicalization of Western Women: Adopting Gender-Specific Methods to Combat ISIL |
| Laila Naraghi | 2017 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | Honorable Mention | Organic Farming, Biopiracy and the Neem Tree, and Plant-Based Diets: How the "Green Movement" Exploits Women in Developing Nations |
| Adrian Lurie | 2017 | USC Levan Institute - Moral Decision-Making | 1st Prize | Tweens in Transition |
| Christina Nursalim | 2017 | USC Levan Institute - Moral Decision-Making | 2nd Prize | The Call for More Orphan Drug Research Funding |
| Olivia Cordell | 2017 | USC Levan Institute - Moral Decision-Making | Honorable Mention | (Mis)Casting Race at USC: A Self-Perpetuating Ethical Dilemma |
| Calvin Boyd | 2017 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | 1st Prize | The Architecture of Captivity: The Inescapable Dilemma of Design |
| Logan Austin | 2017 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | 2nd Prize | The Commodification of Love in the American Cinema |
| Fiona Sequeira | 2017 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | Honorable Mention | The True Future of Tech: Why Women Must Forget the Glass Slipper and Shatter the Glass Ceiling |
| Preethi Chaudhari | 2017 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | 1st Prize | Economic Mobility in Higher Education: A Right or a Privilege? |
| Garrett Nance | 2017 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | 2nd Prize | How Judge Bias Contributes to Racial Disparities and What Can Be Done to Help |
| Maryalice Peng | 2017 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | Honorable Mention | The Legal Whore Stigma: Punishing, Not Protecting Prostitutes |
| Max Hill | 2017 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | Climate Resilience in the Arctic Fishing Industry |
| Alya Omar | 2017 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | Climate Resilience in the Arctic Fishing Industry |
| Austin Reagan | 2017 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | Climate Resilience in the Arctic Fishing Industry |
| Holly Bard | 2017 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 2nd Prize | Kalama Harris Presidential Playbook |
| Gabriella (Rica) Maestas | 2016 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | The Margins of a City |
| Scott Huhn | 2016 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | Does Uber Have and IPO Problem? |
| Sydney Fishman | 2016 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | Fake Guns, Real Money: Conspicuous Consumption and Identity Building in Virtual Communities |
| Monina Varela | 2016 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | Belly |
| Nathaniel Gualtieri | 2016 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | The Keeper of Half-Missing Men |
| Alexa Aman | 2016 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | The Names of Their Fathers |
| Jane Kim | 2016 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | Maternal Health in Nigeria |
| Max Kapur | 2016 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | Hall v. Florida: A Cauldron of Scientific Jurisprudence? |
| Yume Nishi | 2016 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | Crumpling Bad Hospitals with Evidence-Based Design |
| Jennifer Bailey | 2016 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | Mental Illness Among the Homeless and Incarcerated of Los Angeles |
| William Orr | 2016 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | From Shangri-La to Silver Screen: The Myth of Precision Bombing and the Doolittle Raid |
| Chloe Borenstein-Lawee | 2016 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Unsung Heroes: Jewish Women and Non-Violent Holocaust Resistance in France |
| Diana Ciraulo | 2016 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | 1st Prize | The Price of Bleaching the Great Barrier Reef: A Moral and Economic Assessment |
| Lilly Taing | 2016 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | 2nd Prize | The Effects of the Western Garment Industry on Cambodia and Cambodian Women |
| Miranda Drolet | 2016 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | Honorable Mention | Liberated Queer, Repressed Muslim: the Problem with Pinkwashing Palestine |
| Max Kapur | 2016 | USC Levan Institute - Moral Decision-Making | 1st Prize | Hall v. Florida: A Cauldron of Scientific Jurisprudence? |
| Mingkun Chen | 2016 | USC Levan Institute - Moral Decision-Making | 2nd Prize | Tacit Tactics from Values to Actions |
| Ariana Aboulafia | 2016 | USC Levan Institute - Moral Decision-Making | Honorable Mention | The Minority Rule: A Thoreauian Guide to the Proper Practice of Civil Disobedience |
| Emily Livermore | 2016 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | 1st Prize | Film's Construction of a White Male World |
| Christina Nursalim | 2016 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | 2nd Prize | Interventions to Stop Medicine from Being Racist: Solving Racial Healthcare Disparities |
| Julianna Paul | 2016 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | Honorable Mention | Forgetting to Care: Declining Empathy Rates in Medical Students |
| Jennifer Smart | 2016 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | 1st Prize | Space for Aces: Finding a Home in a Sexual World |
| Sivakami Ananthasingam | 2016 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | 2nd Prize | Civilian Heath Care in War-Torn Regions: A Look into Violence Against Women in Sri Lanka and Iraq |
| John Hochschild | 2016 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | Honorable Mention | Reducing Implicit Bias in the American Judicial System |
| Alex Teboul | 2016 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | Choosing Profits Over Patient Health With Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Medication |
| Jennifer Bailey | 2016 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 2nd Prize | Mental Illness Among the Homeless and Incarcerated of Los Angeles |
| Mingkun Chen | 2016 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | Honorable Mention | Tacit Tactics From Values to Actions |
| Proanne Liao | 2015 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | The Margins of a City |
| Maria Fish | 2015 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | The Tragedies of Others: Images, Power and Politics |
| Janella Lee | 2015 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | The Women Made Them Do It: The Fallacies and Truths Behind Shakespeare's Villainous Women in Hamlet and Macbeth |
| Orli Robin | 2015 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | The Fading and Falling Women of Israel: An Exploration of Rama Burshstein's Fill the Void |
| Carrie Moore | 2015 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | Playing Possum |
| Monina Varela | 2015 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | The Things We Did In Texas |
| John Foraker | 2015 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | Using |
| Remaya Campbell | 2015 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Openly Black, a memoir in freeverse |
| Matthew Prusak | 2015 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | The Gorilla Economy': The Emergence of the Rwandan Development Model |
| Sean Elezra | 2015 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | The Test of Times: Interpreting New York Times v. Sullivan Amidst Social, Political Unrest |
| Denni Chen | 2015 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | From Bronze Soldier to Cyber Crimes Conflicts between Estonia and Russia |
| Nicholas Farmer | 2015 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | Where One Font Sent the World into an Uproar, a New Font Seeks Redemption: Enter Comic Neue |
| Francesca Bessey | 2015 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Asteroids Know No Borders: International Solutions for an International Menace |
| Patrick Cleland | 2015 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | From Farce to Art: Sources and Evolution of the Shakespearian Twin Trope |
| Engie Salama | 2015 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | 1st Prize | TRIPS and India: Navigating Intellectual Property Rights for Antiretroviral Therapy Affordability |
| William Orr | 2015 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | 2nd Prize | Reckless and Indiscriminate: The Impact of Japanese Bombing in the Second Sino-Japanese War on Pre-World War II American Morality |
| Francesca Bessey | 2015 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | Honorable Mention | Mothers Made Midwives: A Bottom-Up Solution for Top-Down Disempowerment |
| Paxton Hall | 2015 | USC Levan Institute - Moral Decision-Making | 1st Prize | The Black Island of USC: What It Means to Be African American at an Elite University |
| Ryan Townsend | 2015 | USC Levan Institute - Moral Decision-Making | 2nd Prize | Don't Free Willy: The Case for Captive Orcas |
| Lisa Dorrington | 2015 | USC Levan Institute - Moral Decision-Making | Honorable Mention | Interpreting the Ethicality of Occupation Therapy Practice |
| Jordan Bidwell | 2015 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | 1st Prize | Professor, Would You Share Your Thoughts on Beta-Blockers? |
| Mathew Goldstein | 2015 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | 2nd Prize | Picked Off: Baseball's Discriminatory Latin-American Practices |
| David Zhang | 2015 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | Honorable Mention | Is the "Right to be Forgotten" Ruling Ethical |
| Madison Harris | 2015 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | 1st Prize | Why Air Quality is a Race Issue |
| Cameron Espinoza | 2015 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | 2nd Prize | Laicite and Liberalism: Militant or Modest Separation? |
| Mark Lee | 2015 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | Honorable Mention | Hypermasculine Homosexual Heterosexuals |
| Thomas Winschel | 2015 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | The Importance of Humanities to Humanity |
| Dat Pham | 2015 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 2nd Prize | Malnutrition in the United States and How to Improve the SNAP Program |
| Haylie Chu | 2015 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | Honorable Mention | Proposal to Change the Regulations of Bottled Water to Reflect EPA's Standards of Tap Water |
| Yihui (Ashley) Yang | 2014 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | Dear Female Chauvinist Pigs: You're Not Actually Men |
| Brian Lentz | 2014 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | Modern Implications of Nazi Human Experimentation: The Hippocratic Oath and Hypocrisy in Medicine |
| Rabia Kaiser | 2014 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | Untitled |
| Allegra Tepper | 2014 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | Lizzie in Real Life: Social and Narrative Immersion through Transmedia in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries |
| Orli Robin | 2014 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | Twirl |
| Monina Varela | 2014 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | The Incredible Winter of Watauga County |
| Carrie Moore | 2014 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Euola |
| Mia Galuppo | 2014 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Higher Brain Function |
| Matthew Prusak | 2014 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | The Need for Economic Engagement with North Korea |
| James Luhrs | 2014 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | Media Morte En Vida Sumus: A Historical, Psychological, and Literary Analysis of Public Attitudes on Grief and Mourning |
| Claire Baugher | 2014 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | Case Summary |
| Oriah Amit | 2014 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | Putting Women on the Map: Regendering the Road in Literature and Film |
| Candice Tardif | 2014 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Joining at the Front: British Women's Literary Responses to the First World War |
| Catherine Gavin | 2014 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Aural Sex: The Sound of the Female Orgasm in Pornography and Popular Music |
| Matthew Prusak | 2014 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | 1st Prize | The Need for Economic Engagement with North Korea |
| Engie Salama | 2014 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | 2nd Prize | Traditional Medicine, Pharmaceutical Patents and Intellectual Property Rights in India: Exploring Islamic Law & Moral Rights |
| Morgan Cheeks | 2014 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | Honorable Mention | The Swiss Healthcare System: A Consumer-Driven Alternative to Employer-Based Health Insurance |
| Brian Lentz | 2014 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | 1st Prize | Medicine Demands More Than an Oath |
| Katherine Zopatti | 2014 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | 2nd Prize | Children in the Courtroom as Witnesses |
| Kristen Nakashioya | 2014 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | Honorable Mention | Terrorism and the Media: Rolling Stone's Boston Bomber Cover |
| Thomas Armstrong | 2014 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | 1st Prize | Internal Migration in China: An Investigation of Hukou and State Social Policy |
| Anessa Ibrahim | 2014 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | 2nd Prize | Words Hurt: The Harmful Discourse of Grutter v Bollinger |
| Grace Carballo | 2014 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | Honorable Mention | N/A |
| Joshua Hwang | 2014 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | Outdoor Air Pollution: From Evidence to Comprehensive Action |
| Lauren Taymor | 2014 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 2nd Prize | Solving the Plastic Problem |
| Nichole Delaura | 2013 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | Countercultural Noir |
| Amanda Griffiths | 2013 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | Ends and Meanings: Si guarda al fine and Machiavellian Virtue |
| Adam Phillips | 2013 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | Neon Cowboy: A Brief History and Analysis of The Man with No Name As Seen in Hammett, Kurosawa, Leone, and Nicolas Winding Refn's Film Drive |
| Hayden Bennett | 2013 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Furniture Music |
| William Hagberg | 2013 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Collection of poems (Untitled) |
| Sean Fitz-Gerald | 2013 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | The Boogeymen |
| Eric Weintraub | 2013 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | La Laguna |
| Emily Holmes | 2013 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | Commodifying Humanity: The Ethics of an Open Market for Human Organs |
| Maheen Sahoo | 2013 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | Kant and Hume: A Tale of Two Philosophers |
| Vellore Adithi | 2013 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | Beyond Victimhood, Relief, and Bare Life: Assessing the Pitfalls and Perils of Humanitarianism in Global Development |
| Kelsey Bradshaw | 2013 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | The 16 Years Crisis: Security, Geopolitics, and Conflict in the Arctic |
| Jason Finkelstein | 2013 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | The 16 Years Crisis: Security, Geopolitics, and Conflict in the Arctic |
| Nicholas Kosturos | 2013 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | The 16 Years Crisis: Security, Geopolitics, and Conflict in the Arctic |
| Nithya Kubendran | 2013 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Hemodynamic Pressure Sensors as a Diagnostic Tool in Physiological Monitoring |
| Evan Cohen | 2013 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Hemodynamic Pressure Sensors as a Diagnostic Tool in Physiological Monitoring |
| Jordan Nowaskie | 2013 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Post-Porn Culture: The Effects of Sexual Media on Social Relationships, Identities, and Desire |
| Roza Petrosyan | 2013 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | Voiceless Heroes: Female Resistance during the Armenian Genocide |
| Francesca Bessey | 2013 | USC Levan Institute - Global Ethics | 1st Prize | Free To Die: The Sexist Paradox of Women's Suicide Terror |
| Paige Sorrentino | 2013 | USC Levan Institute - Personal Ethics | 1st Prize | Dante's Inferno--Canto 12.5 |
| Uriel Kim | 2013 | USC Levan Institute - Professional Ethics | 1st Prize | No More Pointing Fingers: Science and Regulation Needed for Fingerprinting's Future |
| Candice Tardif | 2013 | USC Levan Institute - Social Justice | 1st Prize | Allergic Inmates: Unheard and Unsafe |
| Marissa Roy | 2013 | USC Levan Institute - Overall | 1st Prize | The UN's 8 Millenium Development Goals and the Legal Status of Distributive Justice |
| Nahel Kapadia | 2013 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | Honorable Mention | Palliative Care: An Alternative to Physician-Assisted Suicide |
| Kim Vu | 2013 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 2nd Prize | Learning to Choose Who Decides and How to Decide about Advanced Directives |
| Ambrose Soehn | 2013 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | Why Providing Every Student a Quality Music Education Makes So Much Sense |
| Michael Onorati | 2012 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | An Invader of Privacy: Gene Hackman in "The Conversation" |
| Lindsey Smith | 2012 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | Zozobra: The Reassuring Death of the Other |
| Nicholas Farmer | 2012 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | The Quirky Adventures of Margot and Her Little Pink Glove |
| Ruth Madievsky | 2012 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Up in Flames (short story) |
| Sarah Ingerson | 2012 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | UnPretty (poetry collection) |
| Anthony Decapite | 2012 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | The Divide (screenplay) |
| Brenda Yang | 2012 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | Anna's Syndrome (short story) |
| Rebecca Kantor | 2012 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | Introducing the Rapturous Rhonda Rhodes! |
| Allegra Tepper | 2012 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | Mo' Women, Mo' Problems: How Showtime Found its Niche Among the Broads |
| Isabelle Feldhaus | 2012 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | Stopping Corporate Drivers of the Noncommunicable Disease Epidemic: Nestlé Supermarkets in Brazilian Slums |
| Nancy Benner | 2012 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | Are Chemicals Making Americans Fat? What You Should Know About the Obesogen Debate |
| Jasneet Aulakh | 2012 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Blood for Blood: 1984 India |
| Alexander Gertel | 2012 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | The Need to Make Periodic Board Recertification Mandatory for Grandfathered' Specialists |
| Erik Peterson | 2012 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Genocide, Identity, and the State: The Role of Societal Manipulation in Conflict |
| Lauren Maldonado | 2012 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | On Piero della Francesca's "Madonna del Parto": Contextualizing the Modest Mediator and her role in Childbirth in Fifteenth-Century Italy |
| Tiffany Yang | 2011 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | Oscillations of Race and Memory: The Stained Path to "A More Perfect Union" |
| Jason Lipshin | 2011 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | Casual Labor: How Farmville Converges Consumption, Production, and Play |
| Colin Dwyer | 2011 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | Who and What Art Thou?": The Question of the Child in Peter Pan |
| Charles Green | 2011 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Death in Texas |
| Paige Cohen | 2011 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | What We Hang on the Walls |
| Lesley Wasserman | 2011 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | Captive in Communes of Charlatans Confined in the Company of Callow Animals |
| Taylor Friedman | 2011 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | Frozen Cherry Custard |
| Sarah Boots | 2011 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | The Poetry of Science |
| Luia Yen | 2011 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | An Argument in Favor of Corporate Social Responsibility |
| Madison Ainley | 2011 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | Authority through Relevancy: On Modernizing the United Nations Security Council Membership Structure |
| John (Charlie) Mach | 2011 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | mpact of Hospice Care on Healthcare Costs and Patients' Quality of Life |
| Gregory Woodburn | 2011 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Twain Marks of Memory: Time, Loss, and Their Intersection in Mark Twain's Two Autobiographies |
| David Branch | 2011 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | The Subway to the Sea |
| Zara Lukens | 2011 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | The Political, Social, and Institutional Causes of the Disparity between Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina |
| Stephen Lamb | 2011 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | "Wicked and Diverse Opinions": Controlling Heresy in the Henrician Reformation |
| Patreeya Prasertvit | 2010 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | Deck the Halls with Boughs of Folly: Camelot's Unfortunate Victory |
| Hrishikesh Joshi | 2010 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | On Frege's Theory of Sense and Reference |
| Charles Furman | 2010 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | Dueling With Censorship: Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series' Pastiche of Dubbing |
| Sarah Hawley | 2010 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Looking Down |
| Melissa Rae Sipin | 2010 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Her Eyes Round Like Coconuts (A Short Story Collection on the Immigrant Experience of Alienation and Otherness) |
| Timothy Clayton | 2010 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | How to Become the Brother of a Drug Addict |
| Andrew Ramirez | 2010 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | A Man Dies Happy |
| Janet Thielke | 2010 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | How To Save Your Son From the World |
| Joshua Lang | 2010 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | Notes from Cuba: The Importance of Primary Care |
| Gary Yao | 2010 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | Coffeehouse Urbanism: Giving a Jolt to the March Toward True Walkability |
| Michael Kianmahd | 2010 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | Michael on Business: A New Paradigm for Business Blogging |
| Andrea Chin | 2010 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | Aging in Place and Fall Prevention: Home Modification Policy Recommendations |
| Sarah Ghulamhussain | 2010 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | The Voice of a Generation |
| Colin Dwyer | 2010 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Identity, Fractured into Fundamentals: Post-Colonialism and its Application in The Reluctant Fundamentalist |
| Daniel Wu | 2010 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Reimagining the Figueroa Corridor: Growth Politics, Policy, and Displacement |
| David Livingston | 2010 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | Carbon Statecraft: Russia's Attitude, Capacities and Future Under the Kyoto Protocol |
| William Sohigian | 2009 | Analytical Essay | Honorable Mention | Law and Order: Special Victims Unit An Incomplete Rape Discourse |
| Anthony Catalano | 2009 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | The Insufficiency of Tradition: The Plotinian and Irenaean Attempts to Refute the Gnostic Claims |
| Jason Lipshin | 2009 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | Hollywood Extras: "Seeing" and "Being Seen" in Pre-Stonewall Gay and Lesbian Cinema |
| Andrew Ramirez | 2009 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Moving On |
| Cody Marion | 2009 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Heat |
| Taylor Friedman | 2009 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | Special |
| Hannah HyunYoung Kim | 2009 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | Listen |
| Andrew Pouw | 2009 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | Viral Panic: The Paranoid Style in Microbiological Discourse |
| Kunal Bambawale | 2009 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | Funny but Futile: Why Racial Humor is a Joke |
| Nicolette Omoile | 2009 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | The Intersectionality of Sasha Fierce: A Look into Beyonce Knowles, Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) |
| Regina Pritchett | 2009 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Highly Publicized: The Role of Public Space in the Generation of Social Capital |
| Stefanie Demetriades | 2009 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Parallels and Paradoxes: Western Intervention in Middle Eastern Governance |
| David (Brandon) Fite | 2009 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | Quis Hoc Vult?: An Exploration of the Role of Pope Urban II and the Causes behind the Commencement of the First Crusade |
| Colin Dwyer | 2008 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | One More Betrayal: Storytelling as Character Development in Paradise Lost |
| Andrew Horning | 2008 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | The Thin Read Line |
| Melissa Niiya | 2008 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Audubon |
| Yulia Tsukerman | 2008 | Creative Work | Honorable Mention | Poems |
| Tera Vale Ragan | 2008 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | Poems |
| Anthony Marra | 2008 | Creative Work | 2nd Prize | When She Looked Into the Sea (short story) |
| Janet Thielke | 2008 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | Camelot, Georgia (short story) |
| Naira Kuzmich | 2008 | Creative Work | 1st Prize | Inheritance (short story) |
| Brian Braunlich | 2008 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | For his business memo to Mr. William Clay Ford, Jr., Ford Motor Company about "Declining Ford Automotive Sales Trends" |
| Irene Campos | 2008 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | The Inkblot: Interpreting the Diverse World of Psychology |
| Monica Bennett | 2008 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Home Literacy Practices: A study of the self-reported practices and literacy of children in urban Los Angeles |
| Jessica Kim | 2008 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Beam Me Up, Scotty: Into the World of Fan Fiction |
| Allison Norman | 2008 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | Hear, my Lords: Marriage in Twelfth-Century France and Women as Teachers in the Letters of Heloise and the Lais of Marie de France |
| Henry Wu | 2007 | Analytical Essay | 1st Prize | A Ghost Story |
| David Slagle | 2007 | Analytical Essay | 2nd Prize | The Contemporary Filmic Aura |
| Allison Norman | 2007 | Research Essay | 1st Prize | From Lions to Logos: Heraldry, Social Class, and Accessorizing the Middle Ages from Arthurian Romance to American Popular Culture |
| Jamie Kagihara | 2007 | Research Essay | 2nd Prize | Murses |
| Hrishikesh Joshi | 2007 | Research Essay | Honorable Mention | Tacit Knowledge, Schrödinger, and the Revolution in Biology |
| Diana Arterian | 2007 | Creative Writing | 1st Prize | Collected Poem |
| Bryan Carberry | 2007 | Creative Writing | 2nd Prize | Touched by God |
| Suh Yung (Amy) Han | 2007 | Creative Writing | Honorable Mention | Collected Poems |
| Emily Ansara Baines | 2007 | Creative Writing | Honorable Mention | Adventures in Wonderland |
| Shahin Berenji | 2007 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | Analysis of the Supreme Court Case American Insurance Association vs. Garamendi (2003) |
| Chuong Nguyen | 2007 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | The Cost of Self-Esteem and the American Girl |
| John-Paul Petrash | 2007 | Professional Writing / Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | Memorandum |
| Sam Fredericks | 2022 | Sustainability | Honorable Mention | A Retro Revival: How Dated Devices Could Lead to an Environmental Disaster |
| Olivia Ellegard | 2022 | Sustainability | 2nd Prize | The Climate Clock: A Reminder That "Accuracy" Doesn't Matter |
| Mane Berikyan | 2022 | Sustainability | 1st Prize | Dictators are Bad for the Environment |
| Sophia Gross | 2022 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 2nd Prize | The Irony of our Constitution's Ambiguity |
| Diana Cantini | 2022 | USC Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | Policy Memo to Olaf Scholz on Nord Stream 2 and Ukraine |
| Melody Gui | 2022 | Research | Honorable Mention | The Evolution of the National Front in France: Is it Neo-Fascist? |
| Himani Boompally | 2022 | Research | 2nd Prize | Heads or Tails:The Contribution of Religion and Reason to “Scientific Racism” in the Colonial Asylums of Bengal |
| Yunkyoung Jeong | 2022 | Research | 1st Prize | Lifestyle or Politics: The Struggle over Sexuality in the Third World Women’s Alliance |
| Joel Lee | 2022 | Professional Writing/Moral Reasoning | Honorable Mention | Beyond the Species: Kant, Marx, and the Preservation of the Will |
| Madeleine Nations | 2022 | Professional Writing/Moral Reasoning | 2nd Prize | A letter to General Tod D. Walters, Commander, U.S. European Command and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe: Russia’s Black Sea Fleet |
| Emma Taulli | 2022 | Professional Writing/Moral Reasoning | 1st Prize | He has stripped me of my life’s work’: Profit Over Personhood in the Music Industry |
| Benjamin Katz | 2022 | Analytical | Honorable Mention | How Jewish Talk Shapes Judaism |
| Neelia Abadi | 2022 | Analytical | 2nd Prize | “Stop Acting Like a Girl” - An Exploration of Pain Bias in the Medical Field |
| Giacomo Green | 2022 | Analytical | 1st Prize | Why Africa? |
| Cameron Baker | 2022 | Creative | Honorable Mention | When the God of Love Returns |
| Tricia Lim Castro | 2022 | Creative | 2nd Prize | The Forward to My Dance |
| Mariam Matta | 2022 | Creative | 1st Prize | Kin to Nectar and Thorns |
| Aastha Jani | 2023 | Academic Writing: Humanities & Journalism | 1rst Prize | For My Chosen Family: An Ode to The Love I Know Best |
| Jonathan Hayden | 2023 | Academic Writing: Humanities & Journalism | 2nd Prize | Breaking out of the Machine and Becoming Byron: Little Language in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves |
| Yu Li | 2023 | Academic Writing: Humanities & Journalism | Honorable Mention | Confronting Horror: Visually Representing the Abortion Procedure in Audrey Diwan’s Happening |
| Sarah Kim | 2023 | Academic Writing: Social & Hard Sciences & Business | 1st Prize | The Invisible Crisis: A Historical Analysis of National Trauma and Changes in Psychosocial Healing in South Korean Society |
| Ammar Dharani | 2023 | Academic Writing: Social & Hard Sciences & Business | 2nd Prize | The Evolution of the Ginan: Or, When Poets Became Prophets and Prophets Became Poets |
| Stella Horns | 2023 | Academic Writing: Social & Hard Sciences & Business | Honorable Mention | The Green and the Grün: A Comparative Analysis of United States and German Environmental Movements |
| Max Nichol | 2023 | Fiction & Memoir | 1st Prize | Up on the Hill |
| Megan Dang | 2023 | Fiction & Memoir | 2nd Prize | Soul Town |
| Cat Broderick | 2023 | Fiction & Memoir | Honorable Mention | Ancestral Rights |
| Safira Khan | 2023 | Poetry | 1st Prize | The Willingness to Open |
| Emma Ashley | 2023 | Poetry | 2nd Prize | Moment of Contact |
| Yi-Ann Li | 2023 | Poetry | Honorable Mention | Kintsugi: poems celebrating breaking and remaking |
| Anna Molnar | 2023 | Schwarzenegger Institute | 1st Prize | Driving Away from the Car: How to balance transportation demand and supply in Los Angeles for improved efficiency and sustainability?" |
| Emerson Damiano | 2023 | Schwarzenegger Institute | 2nd Prize | A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Deep-Sea Mining |
| Emilee LeVeque | 2023 | Schwarzenegger Institute | Honorable Mention | HOW TO IMPROVE THE STATE GRANT PROGRAMS IMPACT TOWARDS BENEFITTING PRIORITY POPULATIONS: An Analysis of Land Use, Housing, and Transportation Policy in California and the impacts towards Priority Populations |
| Will Erens | 2023 | Sustainability Award | 1st Prize | America, Incorporated: A Navajo Tale of Energy and Power |
| Ahad Aijaz Kajani | 2023 | Sustainability Award | 2nd Prize | The Corruption, Contamination, and Conservation of Our Skies; A Resolution for the Plight and Restoration of the American City |
| Giulia Cafe Aoude | 2023 | Sustainability Award | Honorable Mention | The Unspoken Aspect of Sustainability: The media impact on the public misconception of sustainability |