UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Proposals are now being accepted for the 2019 M.G. Whiting Indigenous Knowledge Student Research Awards, with a maximum amount of $1,500 awarded per project. The submissions deadline for proposals is Feb. 23, and the application plus requirements and additional details are online.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines local and indigenous knowledge as “the understandings, skills and philosophies developed by societies with long histories of interaction with their natural surroundings.” Presented annually, the Whiting Awards fund research topics that focus on aspects of indigenous knowledge for an undergraduate capstone course or honors, master's or doctoral thesis.
Penn State graduate and undergraduate students enrolled at any campus, including the World Campus, are eligible to apply. As part of the award, the winning students are required to present their research findings at a public seminar held in the University Libraries and write an article highlighting the indigenous knowledge aspects of their research project for publication in the online journal “IK: Other Ways of Knowing.”
The award program is an initiative of the University Libraries and Interinstitutional Center for Indigenous Knowledge (ICIK). A list of past recipients with descriptions of their research projects is on the ICIK website, and an indigenous knowledge research guide with library databases, journals, organizations and other resources also is available on the ICIK website.
Awards are funded by the Marjorie Grant Whiting Endowment for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledge, created in 2008 with a gift from the California-based Marjorie Grant Whiting Center for Humanity, Arts and the Environment. The center was established after Whiting’s death in 1995 as a way to preserve the scientific and humanistic legacy of a woman whose career as a nutritional anthropologist contributed to an understanding of the cultural interface between diet and health.
For more information on the M.G. Whiting Indigenous Knowledge Student Research Awards, contact Mark Mattson, global partnerships and outreach librarian, at 814-863-2480 or mam1196@psu.edu.