Most Recent Poorvu Writing Contest Winners | Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning

Check out these stellar essays written by the most recent winners of the Poorvu Center Essay Contest:

Contest Winners Fall 2025

“Across the Universe” by Michelle Cheon ‘28

“An Optimal Multimodal Biomarker Pipeline for the Classification and Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease” by Vasilisa Malenkiy ‘27

“Beyond the Lesion: The Histories of Women’s Pain and Endometriosis” by Emunah Garmaise ‘28

“Gallismo in Italian Cinema: Law, Community, and Psyche in Divorce Italian Style, Seduced and Abandoned, and L’Avventuraby” Gia-Bao Dam ‘26

“I Am Note What I Am”: Race-Class Identity and Disruptive Inheritance in the Tamburlaine Plays and Othello by Maisie Bilston ‘26

“Reading Without Pride: Augustine’s Childlike Conversion” by Aiden Zhou ‘28

“Strange Corpse: Translating Mohamed Choukri’s Al-Jutha al-Ghariba” by Justin Hsieh ‘27

“Talking Drums, Talking Back: Sounding Resistance Across the Atlantic” by Oteng-Agyei Kankam ‘27

“The Pre-Raphaelites: A Series of Encounters” by Allie Gruber ‘26

The Victorian Paradox of Self Control:A Study of Narrative Strategy in Charlotte Brontë’s Vilette by Kira Berman ‘25

“Wok with Me: Oakland’s Chinatown at a Crossroads” by Michelle Vong ‘28

The Yale College Writing Center Contest

Students can showcase their own writing and read the works of past winners.
Writing Partners

Meet with a peer writing tutor for low-stakes help with a paper at any point in the writing process.
Writing Resources

Check out our handouts on writing skills, examples of strong essays, and additional resources and writing tips.
Residential College Writing Tutors

Schedule a meeting with a professional writing tutor for in-depth assistance on an extensive draft.

Audience
Category
- Undergraduate writing