In Winter quarter, we reviewed the outstanding fall nominees for the Boothe Prize and the Lunsford Award. Below, you can read about our amazing winners, and, after May 2026, you'll be able to access their winning essays and presentations through the Boothe Prize and Lunsford Award websites.
Fall 2025 Boothe Prize Winner: Jiaming Zhang
For “The Illusion of Vision: How Social Media Sees (and Misses) the Blind in China,” written in Lindsey Felt’s course, "#NoBodyisDisposable: The Rhetoric of Disability."
Jiaming is from Lake Oswego, Oregon, and previously lived for nine years in Guangzhou, China. Jiaming plans to major in either Electrical Engineering or Mechanical Engineering, with a potential minor in Materials Science and Engineering. His academic interests center on engineering and materials, and he recently began working as a researcher in Professor Gu’s lab, where he assists with mechanical stress testing of materials. Outside of academics, he enjoys exploring local restaurants. He is an active member of the Stanford Badminton Club.
Jiaming says, “Growing up in China, I often noticed tactile paving that was installed for visually impaired people but rarely used or supported in meaningful ways. During a class group discussion session about inclusive architecture and accessibility, that memory kept coming back to me, especially as we talked about what inclusion actually looks like beyond good intentions.”
For his research project, he looked into different tools and systems that help visually impaired individuals navigate urban environments. Through readings and conversations with classmates, his perspective started to shift. As he explains:
“I realized how important it is to listen to people within these communities rather than only analyzing accessibility from the outside. That idea pushed me to explore social media, since it plays such a big role in spreading ideas today, and I became interested in whether these platforms truly reflect the voices of disabled individuals or simply talk about them. As I analyzed different media sources, I was surprised by how many perspectives could exist within such a small piece of content. I began noticing how ideas about ableism, trends, and awareness often show up subtly and go unnoticed, and how these patterns appear across both Chinese and Western media. Writing this paper made me more aware of how easily assumptions can slip into design, media, and everyday conversations.”
One of his biggest takeaways from PWR is the importance of not limiting oneself to a single way of thinking. The class taught him to slow down, question assumptions, and stay open to different perspectives—especially those that are easy to overlook. States Jiaming, “That mindset has stayed with me and continues to shape how I approach my classes, my research, and the way I think about the world around me.”
Fall 2025 Boothe Prize Honorable Mention: Chloe Loquet
For “The Good, the Bad, the Ambivalent,” written in Erik Ellis’s course, "Prowling toward Uncertainty: Exploration as Argument".
Chloe is an Economics major from Malibu, CA. Her interests lie at the intersection of storytelling and social entrepreneurship, with passions spanning from Donut Economics and the circular economy to design thinking. She is currently exploring a pre-law track as she hopes to apply a legal framework to champion creativity by protecting the intellectual property of artists, innovators, inventors, and creatives in the age of Artificial Intelligence. She is a core member of Stanford Women in Law, the Stanford Speakers Bureau, and the Big Swap Committee, and writes a witty movie review column for the Daily, “What I’ve Scene Lately”. In her free time she loves hiking, watching classic films, golfing, coffee shop hopping, doing the NYT crossword, and grounding at the beach.
“Stepping into my first Stanford writing and rhetoric course, I was somewhat apprehensive about the style and caliber of writing I would be expected to produce. As a poet and creative writer, the written word has always spoken to me on a deeper level, scratching that part of my brain that for a bass guitarist can only be reached by getting lost in a new riff and for a golfer by hitting the perfect drive. And so, entering PWR I was worried about the freedom of expression and style that might be lost to the stuffy, rigid structure broadly embraced in academia. However, Erik Ellis’s “Prowling Toward Certainty: Exploration as Argument”, did anything but dampen my creativity and enthusiasm. Unlike your average college writing instructor, Erik encouraged deep exploration of subject matter and personal resonance over convention. Pulling inspiration from ‘unconventional’ collegiate sources like the New York Times, we were challenged to write beyond formulaic regurgitation and think critically with our sources and research areas.
“Exploring my own ambivalence about the subject of my essay allowed for a more nuanced journey towards understanding, taking readers on an engaging evolution of thought grounded in personal experience and humanity as well as thorough research. The topic I chose made for a fun ride in the writing and research process because it was tethered to my own memories and lifelong curiosities. Coming from a family of cinephiles, I grew up watching Classic Westerns with my dad and idolized the kings of the silver screen — Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Steve McQueen. However, as I grew older, I began questioning the questionably sociocultural underpinnings of the cowboy narrative. Being a Latina woman, I began to wonder who and what was sacrificed in the making of these heroes. I found true ambivalence in my own relationship to the cowboy persona and the narrative of the Wild West. I followed my trail of personal, cultural, and historical questions to interrogate a wide variety of interdisciplinary sources. Ultimately, I loved researching and writing this paper because I was personally vested in finding an answer, not because I was being assigned to by any professor, but because it was an answer I truly cared to seek out. This course and this paper have taught me that high-quality academic writing does not have to be void of personality and voice. In fact, by personally grounding our research and reflection we preserve humanity and the core of why we conduct research in the first place; behind every groundbreaking discovery is a question that a human being cared enough about to ask.”
Fall 2025 ESF Boothe Prize Winners
In Fall 2025, Boothe nominations from ESF were judged as part of the SIS/COLLEGE category, although in the past couple years they have be included among the PWR nominations.
The first-place ESF Boothe prize goes to Aayush Pandey for their essay “Judgement in Motion: Montaigne and the Essay as Philosophical Form,” written for ESF 18 and 18A: Between Gods and Beasts / Prof. Sarah Prodan and Dr. Becky Richardson.
The honorable mention goes to Rebecca Rudy for their essay “Birds of a Feather: How three scientists transformed American ornithology from collections to conservation,” written for ESF 22 and 22A: Confronting the Diversity of Life / Prof. Kevin Boyce and Dr. Meg Formato.
Fall 2025 Lunsford Award Winner: Iyanuoluwa Ojuko
For “The Trouble with Loyalty: The Boondocks, Black Twitter, and the cost of black solidarity” presented in Kevin DiPirro’s course, "The Stories We Tell: Restorying Possible Futures."
Iyanu is a junior majoring in Bioengineering from Nigeria and London. Her academic interests span biotechnology, global health equity, and science policy, with a focus on how emerging technologies are developed and governed across global contexts. At Stanford, she is involved in the Stanford Energy Club, contributing to resilient infrastructure projects, and BlackGen Capital, a student-run investment fund. Beyond her academic work, she works at the front desk in the Dean of Students Office, and maintains a strong interest in media criticism and cultural commentary.
“In my PWR 2 class, we always began with vocal warm-ups or stretching exercises, a small ritual that slowly transformed how I understood public speaking. What initially felt slightly awkward became grounding a reminder that speaking is physical, and that ideas travel through breath, posture, and presence. Professor DiPirro encouraged me to speak up, to slow down when I rushed, and to trust that my ideas were worth taking time with. That encouragement mattered more than I expected. Over the quarter, I became more comfortable inhabiting my voice and more deliberate about how and why I used it.
“Through our work on myth as distortion, wisdom, and contested public knowledge, I learned to see narratives as powerful forces shaping collective behavior. My project on racial loyalty emerged from that lens, pushing me to hold tension rather than collapse it into easy conclusions. Instead of searching for a clean resolution, I learned to “stay with the trouble” and ask what stories are doing in the world — who they protect, who they silence, and what futures they make possible. That habit of interrogating underlying narratives now shapes how I approach my work more broadly, whether I am engaging complex social questions or collaborating across disciplines. PWR 2 strengthened not only my writing and speaking, but my confidence in using my voice to examine power, accountability, and possibility.”
Fall 2025 Lunsford Award Winner: Deena Safiulla
For “The Redefinition of Polish Womanhood: An Analysis of Kobieta Magazine Covers” presented in Nissa Cannon’s "Discovering the Past: The Rhetoric of Archival Expression."
Deena is a sophomore from Denver, CO majoring in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Hydrology. She is the president of the Stanford chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers and works in the Wetland Ecosystems lab as a research assistant. She’s also a tour guide and a part of the steel pan ensemble, Cardinal Calypso, both of which allow her to de-stress in the busyness of campus life. In her free time, she loves hiking, painting, photography, and playing music. Deea says:
“When I entered my PWR 2 class this past fall, I knew that I wanted to do a project related to the intersection of gender and societal expectations. In looking for a specific topic, I turned to a world with which I am familiar, but still not entirely a part of. My mother is from Poland, and while I grew up speaking Polish, eating Polish food, and visiting my family there, I often feel like an outsider looking in. This project, in a lot of ways, served as a bridge back to my family and a better understanding of our country's collective history. By analyzing Soviet-era Polish women's magazine covers, I was able to decode how visual media subtly redefined national sentiment and gender roles in a post-WWII landscape.”
Beyond the research itself, the process of preparing for her PWR 2 presentation taught her how to translate complex nuances to a compelling narrative for a live audience. “I thought I knew how to tell stories, given that I tell many when giving a tour of the university to visitors and in my daily life,” Deena says, “However, PWR 2 challenged me to convey much more complicated information in a digestible manner, and finding the right structure, timing, and words was extremely difficult. I found myself very nervous about the oral presentations throughout the quarter because I was terrified of making mistakes.”
Yet, according to Deena, the beauty of PWR 2 lies in how it simultaneously forces you out of your comfort zone and provides a support system for you to fall back upon:
“As part of the class, I went to the Hume Center and attended one-on-ones with my professor, Dr. Cannon. These were both things that I wouldn't have been brave enough to do on my own, but they were the most helpful tools in transforming me as a researcher and presenter. I still find myself utilizing the lessons I learned from Hume tutors and Dr. Cannon, all of which encouraged me to experiment with my presentation style and accept the fact that there will always be something to improve upon with every run through. My final presentation was the culmination of me conquering my fears; fears of asking for help, of making mistakes. Now, because of this, I can say that I've become a much more capable and confident person. I look forward to carrying this with me not only as a student at Stanford but also in my career and life beyond it.”
