<html>
I am happy to tell you about the outcome of this year's Siegel Prize
competition.<br>
Thanks to Deborah, Stefan, and Tom for their work on the selection
committee,<br>
and congratulations to Anya for her fine work that has led to this
honor.<br><br>
Roz<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
Anya Zilberstein is the winner of this year's Siegel Prize, the award of
<br>
$2000 given annually for the best essay on issues relating to science,
<br>
technology, and society written by an MIT student in the previous
<br>
year. The Siegel Prize committee, chaired by Deborah Fitzgerald
(STS), <br>
also included Stefan Helmreich (Anthropology) and Tom Levenson (Program
in <br>
Writing and Humanistic Studies). <br><br>
Anya's winning essay is titled "Objects of Distant Exchange: Traces
of the <br>
Pacific Northwest Coast Fur Trade in New England." The committee
describes <br>
it as "A bold and ambitious effort to use seemingly mundane
objects -- <br>
handmade daggers -- to open a window onto the complicated and highly
<br>
contested interaction between Europeans and Native groups on the
Northwest <br>
coast in the late 18th century. The author skillfully and <br>
persuasively connects the conflicts between these groups, and between
<br>
various native groups with each other, with the changing environmental
<br>
circumstances resulting from increasing trade and, in particular, with
the <br>
decline in sea otters. This essay is beautifully written and elegantly
<br>
argued, a truly impressive piece of scholarship."<br>
<br>
The Siegel Prize was established by family and friends of the late
Benjamin <br>
Siegel (S.B. 1938, Ph.D.), a pioneer in the development of modern
electron <br>
microscopy and professor of applied and engineering physics at Cornell
<br>
University. The prize reflects his abiding interest in the history
and <br>
philosophy of science, technology, and education.<br><br>
Anya Zilberstein wrote her prize-winning essay for a research seminar on
early <br>
American social history with Laurel Ulrich (Harvard University).
Her general <br>
interests are in environmental and agrarian history, the history of
early<br>
America, and the Atlantic world; her dissertation will examine the
relationship <br>
between ordinary farmers and agricultural improvers in British North
America<br>
through a comparative study of Nova Scotia and Massachusetts in the
18<font size=1><sup>th<br>
</sup></font>and early 19<font size=1><sup>th</sup></font> centuries.
Anya herself enjoys farming. For the past two summers, <br>
she has helped a friend run a small farm on Martha’s Vineyard that
provides <br>
flowers, mesclun greens, and vegetables for farmers’ market and island
restaurants.<br><br>
<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Rosalind Williams<br>
Metcalfe Professor of Writing<br>
Director, Program in Science, Technology, and Society<br>
President, Society for the History of Technology<br>
Room E51-185<br>
Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
77 Massachusetts Avenue<br>
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139<br>
617-253-4062</html>