The Pozen Center’s annual Human Rights BA Thesis Award recognizes excellence in writing about human rights, awarding three cash prizes of $500 each to current University of Chicago College students who are human rights majors or minors.

Criteria

  • Submissions must come from human rights majors or human rights minors.
  • Any piece of writing used for a BA Thesis is eligible. The thesis can be written for any major, so long as it takes up a human rights subject.
  • Submissions will be judged by the content and clarity of the writing.

Eligibility

Only human rights majors and minors at the University of Chicago are eligible.

How to Apply

  • Applications will open in Spring 2027.

Learn More

For more information contact Deputy Director Adam Avrushin.

Award Recipients

2026

  • Olivia Rae Okun-Dubitsky (Human Rights; Law, Letters, & Society)
    "Plea Bargaining in Light of Dismissals and Demographics"
  • Juan Simon Angel (Human Rights; Latin American & Caribbean Studies; MA International Relations)
    "The Third Way in Transitional Justice: Parsing out Accountability and Impunity within Colombia's Innovative Special Jurisdiction for the Peace"
  • Serendipity Welsh (Human Rights; Political Science)
    "The Narrative Politics of Climate Migration"

2025

  • Safia Singer-Pomerantz (Human Rights) 
    "Involuntary Sterilization in Garifuna Women from Latin America and ‘Gendered Asylum’ in the United States"
  • Nitya Upadrasta (Public Policy and Business Economics, Minor: Human Rights) 
    "Barriers Built In: Accessing Survivor Justice and Care as a Woman with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities"
  • Delia Acuna (Global Studies and Human Rights) 
    "Human Rights, A Double-Edged Sword: The Paradox of Human Rights as an Imperial and Emancipatory Political Tool"

2024

  • Emma Kreisler
    "A Person's a Person, No Matter How Small: Race, Religion, and Nazi Children's Literature"
  • Natalie Manley
    "From Inside to Insiders: The Unique Social and Human Capital Formerly Incarcerated People in Chicago Bring to, and Barriers They Face in, Criminal Legal System-Related Fields"
  • Adowa Nkansah
    "The Politics of Afromexicanidad: Diaspora and the (re)Construction of Blackness in Mexico"