Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate and Doctoral Thesis Prizes

Dr. Sarah Molina (History of Art and Architecture) won the 2026 Alwaleed Bin Talal Dissertation Prize in Islamic Studies for her dissertation, “The Poetics of Space: How Carpets Shaped the Safavid World.” 

Dr. Nimet Cebeci (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations) was named honorable mention for her dissertation, “Anthropology in the Absence of the Human Soul: Abu’l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī’s Understanding of the Human Being in its Philosophical Context."

Dr. Cem Turkoz (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations) was named honorable mention for his dissertation, “The Making of an Ottoman Tradition of Natural Philosophy ca. 1500–1800.”

Eva Frazier (Social Studies and EMR) won the 2026 Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate Thesis Prize in Islamic Studies for her thesis, “Pacification and its Afterlives: Algeria in American Global War on Terror Doctrine.”

Dalal Hassane (History & Literature and NELC) was named honorable mention for her thesis, “From Baghdad to Slemani: The Poetics of Rememory in The Corpse Washer and The Last Pomegranate Tree.”

Kawsar Yasin (Anthropology and History) was named honorable mention for her thesis, “Shelving East Turkistan: Gendered Archives of Resistance, Exile, and Possibility in Uyghur Istanbul.”

Dr. Hacı Osman (Ozzy) Gündüz (NELC) won the 2025 Alwaleed Bin Talal Dissertation Prize in Islamic Studies for his dissertation, “A Rūmī in the Lands of Shām: Life, Poetry, and Legacy of a Janissary-Turned-Poet Māmayya al-Rūmī (d. 985–7/1577–9).”

Dr. Conor Dube (NELC) won the 2025 Alwaleed Bin Talal Dissertation Prize in Islamic Studies for his dissertation, “Interpreting the Qurʾān in the Islamic West (7th – 11th c.): Tradition and Transformation in Tafsīr.” 

Jana Amin (NELC and Anthropology) won the 2025 Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate Thesis Prize in Islamic Studies for her thesis entitled, “Tasting Freedom: Palestinian Women's Kitchens as Sites of Ethnography, Refuge, and Resistance in Cairo.”

Nicolas Pantelick (NELC and Government) was named honorable mention for his thesis, “Digital Diplomacy During Crisis: An Analysis of Online Israeli Public Diplomacy in the 2023-24 Gaza War"

Maryam Tourk (Social Studies and Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights) was named honorable mention for her thesis on modern South Asia

Afiya Rahman (Social Studies and South Asian Studies) won the 2024 Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate Thesis Prize in Islamic Studies for her thesis, "We Are Children of Genocide: Charting Transnational Solidarity and Racial Politics in the Bangladeshi Diaspora." 

Asmer Safi (Social Studies and Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights) was named honorable mention for his thesis entitled, "'Sing to the Rattling of Your Chains': The Revolutionary Political Thought of Abdul Rahim Popalzai." 

Dr. Armaan Siddiqi (NELC) won the 2024 Alwaleed Bin Talal Dissertation Prize in Islamic Studies for her dissertation entitled, “Portrait of a Moroccanʿālim: Shaykh Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar al-Kattānī’s Life, Works, and World (1858–1927).”

Waseem Sari Nabulsi (Anthropology and History) won the 2023 Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate Thesis Prize in Islamic Studies for his thesis entitled, "Magic Mountain: Samaritan Astrological Intervention in Palestinian Misfortune."

Dr. Nariman Aavani (Study of Religion) won the 2023 Alwaleed Bin Talal Dissertation Prize in Islamic Studies for his dissertation entitled, “Knowledge, Action, and the Ultimate Goal of Human Life: A Hindu-Muslim Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion in the Early Modern Era: Gadādhara (d. 1660) and Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1635).” 

Dr. Marijana Mišević (History and Middle Eastern Studies) was named honorable mention for her dissertation, “Writing Slavic in the Arabic Script: Literacy and Multilingualism in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire.” 

Farah Afify (Social Studies) won the 2022 Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate Thesis Prize for her thesis, “Radical and Muslim: Islamic Liberationist Thought in the Black Panther Party.”

Dr. Janan Delgado (Study of Religion) won the 2022 Alwaleed Bin Talal Doctoral Dissertation Prize for her dissertation, “The Ties That Bind: Child Custody in Andalusian Malikism, 3rd/9th - 6th/12th c.”

Isabel Kendall won the 2021 Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate Thesis Prize in Islamic Studies for her dissertation entitled, “I Know How the Caged Bird Tweets: Online Dissent and Physical Repression in Saudi Arabia, 2015-2020.”

Dr. Rushain Abbasi won the 2021 Alwaleed Bin Talal Dissertation Prize in Islamic Studies for his dissertation, “Beyond the Realm of Religion: The Idea of the Secular in Premodern Islam.”

Dr. Caitlyn Olson was named honorable mention for her dissertation, “Creed, Belief, and the Common Folk: Disputes in the Early Modern Maghrib (9th/15th - 11th/17th c.).”

Murat Eczacıbaşı won the 2020 Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate Thesis Prize in Islamic Studies for his thesis, “Reflections on the Imperial Past: The Evolution of Early High School History Textbooks in the Republic of Turkey.”

Dr. Mary Elston won the 2020 Alwaleed Bin Talal Prize Dissertation Prize in Islamic Studies for her dissertation, “Reviving Turāth: Islamic Education in Modern Egypt.”

Dr. Mira Xenia Schwerda was named honorable mention for her dissertation, “How Photography Changed Politics: The Case of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911).” 

Anwar Omeish won the 2019 Alwaleed Bin Talal Undergraduate Thesis Prize in Islamic Studies for her thesis entitled, “Toward the Modern Revolution: Frantz Fanon, Secularity, and the Horizons of Political Possibility in Revolutionary Algeria.” 

Hannah Hess was named honorable mention for her thesis entitled, “Debating Misyār: Temporary Marriage in Contemporary Saudi Arabia.”