BSC Graduate Student Prizes

Graduate students presenting papers at the annual conference may be eligible for prizes. Three are voted to receive an award of $300 and a recently published book. Previous recipients of awards are ineligible to compete again.
Information about the process and eligibility is provided on notification of a paper’s acceptance for the BSC. This information addresses requirements, the selection process, and criteria. BSANA graduate student prizes are open to all students enrolled in a graduate program at the time of submission.
See below for a list of the Graduate student prize winners.
Prize Winners by Year
2021 BSC (Case Western Reserve, Cleveland)
- Elliot Mackin, “The Ladder and the Banquet: An Image of Divine Ascent at the Vatopedi Monastery”
- Elisabetta Barili, “John Tzetzes and Minucianus: Polemic and Selfrepresentation in the Commentary on Hermogenes”
- Peter Boudreau, “Beyond Archaization: Recalibrating Time in the Melbourne Gospels’ Canon Tables”
2020 BSC (Virtual)
- Samatha Truman, “‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’: The Execution of Judas Iscariot in Two Byzantine Marginal Psalters”
- Joe Glynias, “The Bilingual Administration of Byzantine Antioch (969-1084)”
- Edward Trofimov, “Religiosity and Social Control in Local Communities According to the Twelfth-Century Deuterokanonarion”
- Mateusz Ferens, “Memory Eternal: The Dormition of St. Ephraim as Mnemonic Landscape”
2019 BSC (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
- 1st prize: Elisa Galardi (University of Pennsylvania), “The David Casket: A Gift for the Byzantine Empress”
- 2nd prize: Luca Farina (University of Padova), “Abū Maʿšar in Byzantium. First Remarks on the Greek Version of al-Muḏākarāt fī asrār al-nuǧūm”
- 3rd prize: Elizabeth Zhangi (Sorbonne Université), “The Invisible Icon At El Nazar Kilise, a Tenth Century Church in Cappadocia”
2018 BSC (San Antonio)
- 1st prize: Chiara D›Agostini (University of Southern Denmark), “Mapping the Empire: A New Perspective on the Revival of Ptolemaic Cartography in Byzantium”
- 2nd prize: Michael Beshay (Ohio State University), “‹Then Shall Be the End of the World!›: The Testament of Solomon with Byzantine Imperial and Apocalyptic Traditions”
- 3rd prize: Earnestine Qiu (Tufts University), “Is White Divine? A Reevaluation of the Armeno-Crimean Lives of the Desert Fathers (Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate, MS 285)”
2017 BSC (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis)
- 1st prize: Shannon Steiner (Bryn Mawr College), “Aesthetics of Technology and the Power of Artifice in Byzantine Cloisonné Enamel”
- 2nd prize: Christopher Bonura (University of California at Berkeley), “The Mystery of Beser/Bashir: New Evidence on the ‘Boon Companion’ of Leo III and for the Transmission of Byzantine and Islamic Apocalyptic Thought”
- 3rd prize: Jake Ransohoff (Harvard University), “Change and Continuity in Byzantine Blinding”
2016 BSC (Cornell University, Ithaca)
- 1st prize: Nicole Paxton Sullo (Yale University), “Memory and Recollection in Late Byzantine Akathistos Hymns”
- 2nd prize: Guillaume Malle (Institute of Fine Arts), “Concord Made Visible: The Ravenna Paschal Calendar”
- 3rd prize: Luis J. Salés (Fordham University), “Till Death Do Us Not Part: The Theological Significance of Gregory of Nyssa’s Appropriation of Aristotelian Psychology”
2015 BSC (New York City)
- 1st prize: Lora Webb (Stanford University), “Transfiguration: Mosaic, Liturgy, and Sacred Space in Nea Moni”
- 2nd prize: Alexander Miller (Fordham University), “The Jordan and Ascetic Life: Philoxenos of Mabbug’s Miaphysite Contribution to Syriac Baptismal Theology”
- 3rd prize: Mary Farag (Yale University), “The Role of Ecclesial Property in the Trials of Ibas of Edessa and Dioscoros of Alexandria”
2014 BSC (Simon Fraser University, Vancouver)
- 1st prize: Christopher Timm (Florida State University), “Divinely Mandated Regime Change: Elijah and ‹Macedonian› Dynastic Ideology in the Paris Gregory”
- 2nd prize: Tara Lee Hedrick (Northwestern University), “‹Numerous Escort›: Liturgical Objects in Concert During the Late Byzantine Great Entrance”
- 3rd prize: Norman Underwood (University of California at Berkeley), “Greek Scripts and Latin Elites: (Re)Presenting Byzantine Lordship in Pre-Norman Southern Italy”
2013 BSC (Yale University, New Haven)
- 1st prize: Roland Betancourt (Yale University), “Why Sight Is Not Touch: Reconsidering Extramission in Byzantium”
- 2nd prize : Nicole Paxton Sullo (Yale University), “Reconsidering the Epigrams of Vatican reg. gr. 1”
- 3rd prize: Dina Boero (University of Southern California), “Making a Manuscript, Making a Cult: Scribal Production of the Syriac Life of Symeon the Stylite”
2012 BSC (Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts)
- 1st prize: Byron MacDougall (Brown University), “The Holy Spirit and the Rhetor: Gregory of Nazianzus, enargeia, and the Feast of Pentecost”
- 2nd prize: Beatrice Daskas (Università Degli Studi Di Milano), “Where ekphrasis Meets enkomion and diegesis: Mesarites’ Description of the Church of the Holy Apostles Reconsidered”
- 3rd prize: Anna Sitz (University of Pennsylvania), “From Mortuary Temple to Church: Memory and Appropriation in Upper Egypt”
2011 BSC (DePaul University, Chicago)
- 1st prize: Erika Nuti (University of Turin), “Reconsidering Renaissance Greek Grammar Through the Case of Chrysoloras’ Erotemata’”
- 2nd prize (two winners):
- C. Rene Chaffins (University of Wisconsin-Madison), “Niketas Choniates’ Proteus: Rethinking the Paradoxical “Roles” of Andronikos I”
- Jason Fossella (Saint Louis University), “‘Waiting Only for a Pretext’: A New Chronology for the Sixth-Century Byzantine Invasion of Spain”
2010 BSC (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia)
- 1st prize: Naomi Ruth Pitamber (UCLA), “The Second Hagia Sophia of Byzantium, in İznik/Nicaea”
- 2nd prize: Jonathan Stanfill (Fordham University), “Baiting the Hook: John Chrysostom’s Defense of His Barbarian Mission”
- 3rd prize: Marion Kruse (Ohio State University), “Byzantine and Sasanian Imperial Competition in Sixth-Century Arabia”
2009 BSC (Florida State University)
- 1st prize: Jordan Pickett (University of Pennsylvania), “A Regional Logistics Study: Three Examples from Cappadocia
- 2nd prize: Ivan Drpić (Harvard University), “Notes on Byzantine Panagiaria”
- 3rd prize: Sofia Georgiadou (University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana), “The Architectural Projects of Nikephoros I Komnenos Doukas (1266/8-1296/8) and Anna Palaiologina in Arta, Epiros”
2008 BSC (Rutgers University)
- 1st prize: Benjamin Anderson (Bryn Mawr College), “The Sociology of Art in Eighth-century Constantinople: Vat. Gr. 1291 and the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai”
- 2nd prize: David Yates (Brown University), “The Rediscovery of the Roman Republic in 11th and 12th Century Byzantine Hagiography”
- 3rd prize: Henry Schilb (Indiana University—Bloomington), “An Unpublished, Sixteenth-century Epitaphios in the Indiana University Art Museum”
2007 BSC (University of Toronto )
- 1st prize: Richard Payne (Princeton University), “Christian Elites and Ecclesiastical Factionalism in the Sixth-Century Sasanian Empire: The ‘Reforms’ of Mar Aba”
- 2nd prize: Kevin Kalish (Princeton University), “A Perspective from Below: The Lament of Hades in Romanos and the Byzantine Liturgical Tradition”
- 3rd prize: Justin Leidwanger (University of Pennsylvania), “Structure and Scale in the Maritime Economy of Early Byzantine Cyprus”
2006 BSC (St. Louis)
- 1st prize: Kevin Kalish (Princeton University), “A Christian Narrative in Homeric Verse: The Melding of Poetic Traditions in the Vision of Dorotheus and the Emergence of Christian Hexameter Poetry”
- 2nd prize: Örgü Dalgiç (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU), “The Triumph of Dionysus in Constantinople: A Mosaic and Its Context”
- 3rd prize: Travis Lee Clark (Temple University), “Behold the Cosmos: The Virgin Frontispieces of Smyrna Evangelical School B.8”
2005 BSC (University of Georgia, Athens)
- 1st prize: David Michelson (Princeton University), ““Though He Cannot Be Eaten, We Consume Him”:Liturgical and Devotional Contexts for Opposition to Chalcedonat the End of the Fifth Century”
- 2nd prize: Marica Cassis (University of Toronto), “Çadir Höyük: A Byzantine Settlement in Central Anatolia”
- 3rd prize: Eric Martin (University of Tennessee), “Bishop Athanasius and the Sacrament Mime: The Remnant of an Arian Slur?”
2004 BSC (Walters Art Museum and Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore)
- 1st prize: Günder Varinlioglu (University of Pennsylvania), “The Rural Landscape and Built Environment at the End of Antiquity: Limestone Villages of Southeastern Isauria”
- 2nd prize: Young Kim (University of Michigan), “The Heresiarch as Unholy Man: The Panarion of Epiphanius of Cyprus as Collective Biography”
- 3rd prize: Cristina Toma (University of Maryland. College Park), “Rhodian Portrait Ceramics: Objects of Trade and Gift Exchange”
2003 BSC (Bates College)
- 1st prize: David A. Michelson (Princeton University), “Did Charlemagne Sack Constantinople? Western Charlemagne Legends as Anti-Byzantine Propaganda (c. 1000-1204)”
- 2nd prize: Galina Tirnanić (University of Chicago), “The Mutilated Nose: Rhinokopia as a Visual Mark of Sexual Offence”
- 3rd prize: D. Kay Woods (University of Kentucky), “The Lure of the East: A New Place and Space for Fourth-Century Female Patrons”
2002 BSC (Ohio State University)
- Alicia Walker (Harvard University), “Unpacking the Darmstadt Casket”
2001 BSC (University of Notre Dame)
- Warren Woodfin (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), “Clothing the Icon: The Podea and Analogous Liturgical Textiles”
2000 BSC (Harvard University)
- Maureen Reissner-O’Brien (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), “The Gynaeceum, The Kindergarten, and the Vienna Genesis: Biblical and Extra- Biblical Imagery in Folio 16r”
1999 BSC (University of Maryland)
- Bissera V. Pentcheva (Harvard University), “A New Image of the Virgin in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Constantinople”
1998 BSC (University of Kentucky–Lexington)
- Areti Papanastasiou (University of Chicago), “. . . such a husband . . .”
1997 BSC (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
- Elizabeth S. Bolman (Bryn Mawr), “Food for Salvation: The Coptic Galaktotrophousa”
1996 BSC (University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill)
- Kim Bowes (Princeton University), “The Monumental Columns of Constantinople and Their Function in Urban Ceremony”
1995 BSC (New York University/Metropolitan Museum of Art)
- Demetrios Kyritses (Harvard University), “The ‘Common Chrysobulls’ of Cities and the Pattern of Ownership in Late Byzantium”
1994 BSC (University of Michigan–Ann Arbor)
- Glenn Peers (Johns Hopkins University), “Angelic Epiphany and Artistic Imagination”
1993 BSC (Princeton University)
- Olenka Pevny (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University), “Patronage and Church Decoration in Kievan Rus’: A Study of the Church of St. Cyril in Kiev”
1992 BSC (University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign)
- Mary Lee Coulson (Courtauld Institute of Art), “Re Protomaiolica in 12th-Century Corinth”
1991 BSC (Hellenic College/Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Brookline, Mass.)
- Maria Georgopoulou (UCLA), “Venice and Byzantine Chandx/Candia (Crete): A Western Interpretation of Byzantine Culture”
1990 BSC (Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore)
- Dorothy Verkerk (Rutgers University), “Liturgy and Narrative in the Exodus Cycle of the Ashburnham Pentateuch”
1989 BSC (University of Massachusetts–Amherst)
- Thomas Dale (Johns Hopkins University), “Venice and Aquileia: A Dialogue in Pictures”