The University of Texas Libraries has announced the recipients of the 2024 Signature Course Information Literacy Award, which honors exceptional undergraduate work demonstrating strong research and information literacy skills developed in Signature Courses.
This year’s first place award was given to Jane Anderson for her paper “Ancient Greek Philosophy of Mind-Body and its Relevance to Modern Medicine,” written for UGS 302: Tales of the Trojan War, taught by Dr. Adam Rabinowitz. In his nomination, Dr. Rabinowitz called Anderson’s submission “one of the very best illustrations of research and information literacy I have seen in recent years.”
Second place went to Alex Xie for his paper “An Introduction to Biocomputing and its Implications: Developing a Biological Supercomputer,” written for Dr. Hal Alper’s UGS 302: Engineering Biology. Dr. Alper remarked that in his time teaching the course, Xie’s work stood out for its depth of research and quality of writing.
Third place was awarded to a group project authored by Caleb Andrews, Hope Crone, Mona Igari, Jacob Snider, and Kayla Steele in UGS 303: Problem Solving in Socio-Ecological Systems, taught by Dr. Laura Gonzalez. Their paper, “Effect of Litter on Plant Species Diversity in an Urban Environment,” was commended for building on earlier coursework to develop a thoughtful and well-supported research hypothesis.
The winners were recognized at the Office of Undergraduate Research’s Research Recognition Reception on April 14. Their award-winning papers, along with those from previous years, are available through Texas ScholarWorks.
These students exemplify the intellectual rigor and creative inquiry at the heart of undergraduate education at UT Austin.