Skip to Main Content

Illuminant & Annual Report | 2020

The Illuminant is a production of the Miami University Libraries' Office of Strategic Communications.

Three earn library research award in 2020

Anna Maltbie poses with her second-place award certificateJack Komer poses with his first-place award certificate.Kyle Laycock poses with his honorable mention award certificateThree Miami University students earned the fifth-annual Libraries Award for Undergraduate Research Excellence (LAURE) in 2020. LAURE committee members announced the winners during the virtual Undergraduate Research Forum in April.

Jack Komer, a Special Education major, was awarded first prize for his essay about his project “Alternatives to Exclusionary School Discipline: An Administrator’s Toolkit.” Jack’s faculty sponsor was Leah Wasburn-Moses, and librarian Abigail Morgan provided support.

English Literature and Economics major Anna Maltbie’s essay earned second prize. She described her project “The Paper Person: A Comparative Analysis of Rhetoric and Truth in Environmental Economics, Literature, and Policy”. Anna’s faculty sponsor was Anita Mannur, and librarians Jenny Presnell and Mark Dahlquist provided assistance.

The committee also awarded an honorable mention for the most innovative use of library resources in a research project to Computer Science major Jacob Sandy and his project team members Kyle Laycock, Andrew Nieto, and Christian D’Amico. Their project “The Application of Machine Learning to Digitized Postcards as Artifacts” was sponsored by Philippe J. Giabbanelli, and Alia Levar Wegner was the librarian providing support for the project.

The LAURE recognizes and celebrates undergraduate students who demonstrate excellence in using library resources while conducting research and class projects. A partnership between the University Libraries and the Dean of Libraries’ Student Advisory Council, the award offers up to a $750 prize to winning essayists who describe how they used library resources during their research process.

Each LAURE winner’s essay and research projects are uploaded to the University Libraries’ Scholarly Commons, an open-access digital repository for research conducted by Miami University students, faculty, and staff.