Earning global undergraduate honours
The Faculty of Arts and Science was well represented when this year’s Global Undergraduate Awards were announced. Leading the way was Damai (Kai) Siallagan who earned a Global Award in the Politics and International Relations category for his paper Our Savages : A Comparative Study of Canadian Media Coverage of the Occupations of Palestine and Western New Guinea.
Since 2015, Queen’s University has only had two other Global Winners.
For his efforts, Siallagan earns a Gold Medal and a Certificate of Recognition, publication of his winning submission on The Undergraduate Library, and fully funded travel to attend the UA Global Summit in Dublin, Ireland starting November 13.
“Throughout my time at Queen’s, I often felt that the issues I cared about deeply were unimportant to those around me, while the topics on everyone’s tongues were those that I knew little about,” says Siallagan. “It was challenging to find common ground between subjects that mattered to me and those that resonated with others. My winning research paper bridged that gap, echoing the imperative for solidarities between oppressed peoples in Palestine, Indonesia, and globally.”
“This award also offers me the great honour of carrying the histories of my family and my people to a global venue,” he adds. “My grandparents came from farming backgrounds. Until relatively recently, the clan name Siallagan was only ever heard amongst a few villages in rural Sumatra. I hope to honour the vastness of my ancestors’ lives as I bring their memory to the Global Summit, and that venues like the Summit continue to hold space for ever-more diverse histories.”
The Global Undergraduate Awards is the world’s leading undergraduate awards programme which recognizes top undergraduate work, shares this work with a global audience, and connects students across cultures and disciplines.
Every year, the Undergraduate Awards coordinates an awards program for penultimate and final year undergraduate students, as well as students who have graduated within the program year. Entrants can submit their work to one of our 25 categories, which represent a broad range of academic disciplines. The best 10 per cent of work is shortlisted as Highly Commended, and the top submission in each category is deemed the Global Winner.
Other winners from FAS include:
Regional Winner – The Americas
- Linguistics – Corey Page Martin | Queen’s University at Kingston
Highly Commended Award winners
Art History & Theory
- Xinyi Yue | Queen’s University at Kingston (two entries)
History
- Alexia Platt | Queen’s University at Kingston
Politics and International Relations
- Margaret Cavanagh | Queen’s University at Kingston
Psychology
- Grace Armstrong | Queen's University at Kingston
Social Sciences: Sociology & Social Policy
- (Margaret) Jitong Shen | Queen’s University at Kingston (two entries)
Visual Arts
- Della Vaz | Queen’s University at Kingston
Learn more about the awards on the Global Undergraduate Awards website.