Award for Exemplary Student Research Winners

We are pleased to announce the recipients of the Ross-Blakley Law Library Award for Exemplary Student Research. Their papers demonstrate sophistication and originality in the use of research materials, exceptional innovation in research strategy, and skillful synthesis of research results into a comprehensive scholarly analysis.

The Ross-Blakley Law Library Award for Exemplary Student Research is an annual award which serves as a means to showcase extraordinary student research. If you are a 2L or 3L and would like to enter the competition, please consult the Award for Exemplary Student Research page.

2025

First Place

Elizabeth Kness, Agencies Changing Course: Conservation as a Land Use in BLM's Public Lands Rule

Second Place

Kyrah Berthiaume, Protecting Public Health amid Misinformation and Scientific Illiteracy: Federal Actions Necessitating State Interventions

2024

First Place

Seth Young, Hope for the Hopi: How Certification Marks Can Help the Hopi Tribe Protect its Most Colorful Crop

Second Place

Melissa Alter, Undoing Past (In)Jury: Adapting to the Loss of Peremptory Challenges

2023

First Place

Lauren Krumholz, Public Health Consequences of Appellate Standards for Hostile Work Environment Claims

Second Place

Katharine Greer, Arizona's Failure: Advocating for an Affirmative Defense for Sex-Trafficking Victims in Line with Feminist Legal Reasoning

2022

First Place

Claire Newfeld, Indian Boarding School Deaths and the Federal Tort Claims Act: A Route to a Remedy

Second Place

Joanna Jandali, Jammed from Justice: How International Organization Immunity Enshrines Impunity

2021

First Place

Sarah Brunswick, PFAS Are Forever: Why Unregulated Agricultural Water Is Not a Girl’s Best Friend

Second Place

Kole Lyons, Fresh from the Freezer: Exploring the "Knead" for Transparent Bread Labeling

2020

First Place

Brent Bihr, Dark Patterns, Warcraft, and Cybersex: The Addictive Face of Predatory Online Platforms and Pioneering Policies to Protect Consumers

Second Place

Olivia Stitz, Comity, Tipping Points, and Commercial Significance: What to expect of the Hague Judgments Convention

2019

First Place

Walter Johnson, Governance Tools for the Second Quantum Revolution

Second Place (tie)

Grant Frazier, Using Your Head: A Different Approach to Tackling the NFL's Concussion Epidemic

Jack Milligan, Malmin v. State's Ipse Dixit: Arizona's Article II, § 8 Is Not of the "Same General Effect and Purpose" as the Fourth Amendment

2018

First Place

Steven Perlmutter, High Times Ahead: Products Liability in Medical Marijuana

Second Place

Celeste Robertson, When Bitcoins Buy Opioids: Why Amending the Federal Money Laundering Statutes is Necessary to Combat the Opioid Crisis

2017

First Place

Chelsea Gulinson, Embryonic Stem Cell Tourism

Second Place

Jameson Rammell, Polarizing Procedures: Transsexual Inmates, Sex Reassignment Surgery, and the Eighth Amendment

2016

First Place

Robert Skousen, Redefining New Water: Inland Surface and Groundwater Desalination

Second Place

Simon Goldenberg, Considering Abusive Marriages in the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Community and Ways for Agunot to Escape

2015

First Place

Racheal White Hawk, A New Formula for Tribal Internet Gaming

Second Place

Glennas'ba Augborne, The HEARTH Act: Implementing UN Indigenous Rights Norms to Reconcile the Limitations of Tribal Environmental Sovereignty

2014

First Place

Jeremiah Chin, Red Law, White Supremacy: Cherokee Freedmen, Tribal Sovereignty and the Colonial Feedback Loop

Second Place

Jennifer Walston, Arizona’s Domestic Violence Victims Need a More Safety-Centered Approach in Their Pursuit of Family Court Orders

2013

First Place

Lily Yan, Uncharted Domains and the New Land Rush: Indigenous Rights to Top-Level Domain

Second Place

Tim Forsman, What the QSA Means for the Salton Sea: California’s Big Blank Check