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Promoting Undergraduate Research at MESA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2018

Jeff VanDenBerg
Jeff VanDenBerg*
Affiliation:
Drury University, Founding Member, MESA's Committee for Undergraduate Middle East Studies
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Extract

In November 2017, the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) sponsored the fourth annual Undergraduate Research Workshop in Washington, D.C. Organized by MESA's Committee for Undergraduate Middle East Studies, the workshop provides an opportunity for talented undergraduate students to present their scholarship in a professional context. Participants are selected through a competitive application process, and, since the program's inception have come from universities in Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, France, and across the United States.

Type
2017 MESA Conference: Undergraduate Research Presentations
Information
Review of Middle East Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , April 2018 , pp. 160 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America, Inc. 2018 

In November 2017, the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) sponsored the fourth annual Undergraduate Research Workshop in Washington, D.C. Organized by MESA's Committee for Undergraduate Middle East Studies, the workshop provides an opportunity for talented undergraduate students to present their scholarship in a professional context. Participants are selected through a competitive application process, and, since the program's inception have come from universities in Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, France, and across the United States.

The workshop includes a formal paper presentation, peer reviewing, and feedback from scholars with expertise in the students’ topic areas. The events then conclude with a poster session open to all MESA conference attendees. As part of the overall experience, the students are invited to stay for the full MESA conference so as to take advantage of professional development opportunities and experience the intellectual vibrancy of an academic conference.

The 2017 posters published in the following pages are illustrative of the high-quality scholarship produced by participants over the past four years. Their research asks interesting and original questions, and draws on an impressive range of methodologies, including personal interviews, field research, statistical analysis, and archival work. Most of the participants aspire to graduate school, and judging from the sophistication of their projects, the future of scholarship in Middle East studies is bright.

The undergraduate posters presented in this Issue of RoMES are from the following students:

  • Roxanna Alizadeh, Metropolitan State University of Denver (December 2017)

  • Hannah Ellis, University of California, Berkeley (May 2018)

  • Melissa Nicole Levinson, New York University (May 2018)

  • Nalini Ramachandran, Northeastern University (May 2017)