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Honors Fellow Taylor Garner ’20 has been recognized by The Forum on Education Abroad with its 2019 Award for Academic Achievement Abroad, one of just two students nationally recognized this year.

Garner was selected for her ongoing work on her Honors Fellow research that is focused on comparing women’s memories of political violence in Argentina and Palestine. The undergraduate research project titled “Women as Transmitters of Memory in Contexts of Violence and Struggle” has taken Garner to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Nablus, Palestine, with Assistant Professor of Geography Sandy Marshall serving as her mentor.

The Forum on Education Abroad presents the award each year to recognize excellence in academic work completed by undergraduate students as part of an education abroad program. Garner will receive the award in March during The Forum’s 16th Annual Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. She will present her research during a plenary lunch that will be attended by more than 1,400 international education professionals.

Garner is the first ���ϲ����� student to win the Award for Academic Achievement Abroad.

One reviewer of Garner’s nomination for the award wrote, “I am extremely impressed with the level of sophistication of Taylor’s project. Her passion for the topic is clearly presented in the application. Wonderful to see such enthusiasm founded on excellent academic skills.” Another reviewer said that the fact this level of research is being undertaken by an undergraduate student “is astounding.”

Along with her participation in the Honors Program, Garner is a recipient of a grant from ���ϲ�����’s Center for Research on Global Engagement and the Rawls grant presented by the Undergraduate Research Program Advisory Committee. She is a winner of the Heidi Frontani Memorial Study Abroad Essay Contest, which comes with an award to support study abroad.

As part of her research, Garner traveled to the West Bank this past summer and spent two months conducting field research that included interviews with more than 20 women from Nablus. In addition, she studied Arabic at an-Najah University and volunteered with Project HOPE, a local community organization serving women and children from marginalized communities, including nearby refugee camps. She was joined by Marshall, who was also conducting his own research in the West Bank.

“It is amazing that I can do research on something that I’m so passionate about and that enables me to travel around the world,” Garner said after returning from her time abroad. “Through this experience I realized that I love talking to people and hearing stories that are often ignored.”