There are three History of Science and Technology essay prizes:
The student with the top essay in Science Fiction in Film receives the King’s College History of Science and Technology Program Essay Prize in Science Fiction Film.
Eleanor Friddell: Major in Mathematics and Classics with a Minor in HOST
“A new religion for a new millennium: the spirituality of science in Contact”
Emma Martel: Combined Honours in Early Modern Studies and Religious Studies
“Outsourcing Morality: 1960s Science Fiction and Machine Warfare as a Cold War Concern”
Emma Brouwer: Mechanical Engineering
“Science fiction and the validity of the Turing Test”
Sabina Willmott: English and Creative Writing
“Vital subjectivity and the metanarrative of linear time: the postmodern scientific process of Arrival and how it challenges Enlightenment values”
Elzbieta Wawer: Mechanical Engineering
“Portrayal of technology as Pandora’s Box in the film Gattaca”
Alex Long: History
“Alien superpowers: a critical evaluation of the technological levels implied for the extraterrestrial civilizations in the films Contact (1997) and Interstellar (2014)”
Alex Stover: Political Science and History
“All too human: understanding human transcendence in 2001: A Space Odyssey”
An award of $1000 is given to the student with the best essay submitted in Science and Religion: Historical Perspectives (Fall Term) and Science and Religion: Contemporary Perspectives (Winter Term) each year one or both of these courses are offered. The runner-up receives a $50 gift certificate from the King’s Co-op Bookstore. Two papers are nominated from each course and evaluated by representatives from the Contemporary Studies Program, Early Modern Studies Program and History of Science and Technology Program, along with the university chaplain and the course instructor(s). The two science and religion courses are generally offered together every other academic year.
Note: beginning with the introduction of the monetary prize in 2017–2018, the third-placed student is awarded runner-up status in cases where one student places first and second
Note: this year there was a tie for the top prize (student names are listed alphabetically)
Note: Science and Religion: Contemporary Perspectives was not offered in 2015–2016
Note: Science and Religion: Contemporary Perspectives was not offered in 2014–2015
Note: this year there was a tie for the top prize (student names are listed alphabetically)
Dr. Rowland Marshall, friend of the University of King’s College, established the Dr. Rowland Marshall HOST Essay Prize to celebrate the best research essay written in ecology and environment. To qualify for consideration for the prize, the paper must be written for Engineering the Planet: the Anthropocene Era, from Prehistory to Today’s Global Crisis (HSTC2210.03), Ecology and Religion (HSTC3202.03/ RELS3211.03), or Environmentalism: origins, ideals and critique (CTMP2206.03/HSTC2209.03). This prize is awarded annually and its value is between $800 and $1,000.
Cameron Yetman (Winter Term): Philosophy and History of Science and Technology, BA(Hons)’20
“Ecological and Cosmological Selves: Philosophy, Nature, and Islam in Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzān”
Read an interview with Cameron about his prize-winning essay and his wider interests in environmentalism and academics.