The Hesburgh Libraries is proud to announce the winners of the 2026 University of Notre Dame Library Research Award.
This year, nine undergraduate students from disciplines across the University earned honors for their strong research skills and effective use of library resources and services in their course assignments, research projects and creative work.
“I am delighted to see the creative and diverse research demonstrated by this year’s winners,” said Margaret Meserve, Edward H. Arnold Dean of the Hesburgh Libraries. “The quality of undergraduate research at Notre Dame is extraordinary. Here in the Libraries, we’re proud to provide services, collections, and spaces that support and inspire students as they grow as scholars.”
The award, sponsored annually by the Hesburgh Libraries, invites undergraduate students to submit a brief essay describing the many ways they used library resources for a project or assignment completed during summer 2025, fall 2025, or spring 2026.
Congratulations to the 2026 Library Research Award winners!
Capstone or Thesis Research
First Place – Gabriela Sierocka, Senior
College of Arts & Letters, Computer Science
Visions of Judgment: Reimagining Dante’s Inferno in Nineteenth-and Twentieth-Century Art
Advised by: Theodore Cachey
“I needed not just books but objects: the kind of primary materials that ask you to slow down, that resist the speed of digital research, that insist on being read with attention…The Hesburgh Libraries provided that, repeatedly and generously, in ways I could not have anticipated when I began.”
Second Place – Kate Rafford, Senior
College of Arts & Letters, American Studies and Economics
Magic in the Sound of Her Name: Remembering the Female Faculty at Notre Dame 1970-1981
Advised by: Kathleen Cummings
“My thesis would not have been possible without the sources I found in the University Archives collection, further supported by library workshops, databases, search tools, print and digital resources, and study spaces. I am very thankful to the library staff for guiding me through this journey and consistently supporting the resources that enable student success.”
General Research
First Place – Maria Eduarda Grill da Silveira, Sophomore
Keough School of Global Affairs, Global Affairs and Economics
A Church Divided: A Comparative Analysis of Catholic Institutional Responses to Military Repression in Chile and Argentina, 1968–1990
Advised by: Emma Murphy
“When I first typed that research question into a blank document, what I could not have anticipated was how completely Hesburgh would shape the answer… Every resource appeared at the precise moment the research demanded it, not as a supplement to the project, but as its foundation.”
Second Place – $750
Sadie Johnston, Junior
Mendoza College of Business, Marketing and Spanish
Metrics to Mission: Strategic Engagement Analysis for the ND Poverty Initiative
Advised by: Jaclyn Biedronski
“My project illustrates Hesburgh Library’s role as a catalyst in independent research — providing not only a physical space, but also an intellectual one for complex analysis, methodological mastery, and creative, multidisciplinary inquiries.”
First Year Research
First Place – Ada Duru Ak, Freshman
Keough School of Global Affairs, Global Affairs
Rational Motives, Flawed Execution: Causes of the Winter War
Advised by: Daniel Lindley
“I do not think I could have pulled together the primary sources, the theoretical framework, and the supporting details as effectively without Hesburgh’s resources… I am grateful for the way the library supports student research, and this project made me appreciate how much is here, and how much I would have missed without it.”
Second Place – $750
Maggie Sheehan, Freshman
College of Science, Biological Sciences and English
Translating a Memory: Cultural Loss and Landscape in Ó Direáin’s “Cuimhne an Domhnaigh”
Advised by: Clíona Ní Ríordáin
“When I submitted my final essay, my professor commented that it was well-researched. As I reflected on this comment, I realized that it was all due to the resources provided by the Hesburgh Library.”
Emerging Scholar
Valeria Bautista Misakova, Senior
College of Science, Physics and American Studies
The World’s Toughest Rodeo: From Honky-Tonk to The Big City, How rodeos found a way to round up the community during the HIV/AIDS crisis
Advised by: Gregory Bond
“Archival work continues to shape history as we understand it today, and I’m grateful to have been part of the growing effort, all due in part to the resources at Hesburgh Libraries.”
Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship Award Winners
Yingxin (Cindy) Liu, Senior
College of Arts & Letters, Economics, Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics, and Japanese
How Does Driving Behavior & Road Environment Influence Risk for Commercial Vehicle Fleets in Beijing
Advised by: Jooyoung Cha
“Throughout my research journey, the Hesburgh Library offered stable computing resources for data analysis, workshops on academic writing and locating economic literature, and access to librarians and curators who guided me in identifying reliable databases.”
Leina Ulutoa, Junior
College of Arts & Letters, Political Science and Japanese
Digital Placemaking: How Cultural Immersion Through Virtual Reality Technologies Impact Personal Experience
Advised by: Yoko Kawamura
“Having participated in VR through the Immersive Technologies Lab, my research project and presentation became available in interactive, stimulating, and powerful ways.”