2024 Secretary’s Research Awards

I am very pleased to announce the Secretary’s Research Prizes for 2024, recognizing outstanding scholarship across disciplines at the Smithsonian Institution.

The in-person ceremony will take place on Monday, March 24. The event will start with a light breakfast reception in the Freer Conference room from 8:30 – 9:15 a.m. followed by the program in Meyer Auditorium from 9:30 – 11:00 a.m.

The presentation of the Secretary’s Research Prizes will be followed by the 11th annual Bruce William “Will” Morrison memorial lecture. The lecture is named in honor of Morrison, who retired as program manager after many years in the Office of Fellowships and Grants (now known as the Office of Academic Appointments and Internships). This year’s talk will be delivered by Rhea Combs, Director of Curatorial Affairs, National Portrait Gallery.

As director of curatorial affairs, Rhea L. Combs works with the museum’s Curatorial, History, Conservation and Audience Engagement departments to grow the Portrait Gallery’s collection, develop impactful exhibitions, and draw connections between portraiture, biography and identity.

The recipients of the 2024 Secretary’s Research Prizes are:

• Susan Brown and Alexa Griffith (CHDM) for the digital exhibition: “The Designs of Dorothy Liebes.”
• Rosanne Di Stefano (SAO) for the article: “SCATTER: A New Common Envelope Formalism.”
• Massumeh Farhad (NMAA) for the edited volume: Global Lives of Objects: A Hundred Years of the National Museum of Asian Art.
• Theodore Gonzalves (NMAH) for the scholarly book: Smithsonian Asian Pacific American History, Art, and Culture in 101 Objects.
• Carlos Jaramillo (STRI) for the scholarly book: A Long Time Ago: A Paleontological Illustrated Journey of Colombia.
• Igor Krupnik (NMNH) for the scholarly book: Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 1: Introduction.
• Dwandalyn Reece (NMAAHC) for the scholarly book: Musical Crossroads: Stories Behind the Objects of African American Music.
• John Troutman (NMAH) for the scholarly book: Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey.
• Margaret Weitekamp (NASM) for the scholarly book: Space Craze: America’s Enduring Fascination with Real and Imagined Spaceflight.

These pan-Institutional prizes recognize excellence in recent research by the Institution’s employees and carry a $2,000 award (per project) for future research. The work of the Secretary’s Research Prize recipients underwent peer review, and a committee of the Smithsonian Congress of Scholars, representing expertise across the diverse spectrum of Smithsonian scholarship, recommended finalists.

Please join us for this celebration of the outstanding scholarship at the Smithsonian.

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