New Scholar Essay Prize for Catholic Studies in the Americas
The New Scholar Essay Prize is one of a very few recurring competitions in the world promoting scholarship in Catholic Studies in the Americas. Focused on scholars at the early stages of their careers, the prize shines a spotlight on up-and-coming experts whose work might not otherwise find a wide audience.
Since its start in 2020, the prize has received dozens of submissions and has distributed annual prizes in the amount of $1500 each. Winners typically offer a lecture in person at Fordham or as an online webinar, further extending the audience for the awarded research. Many of those presentations remain available on the Curran Center website. Past winners have gone on to achieve great things in the field. They remain connected to the Curran Center and help promote the prize and the Center’s other work around the globe.
Past Winners
Since its inception, the New Scholar Essay Prize for Catholic Studies in the Americas has recognized emerging scholars whose work makes significant contributions to the field. The recipients below represent a range of innovative research engaging Catholicism in historical, cultural, and interdisciplinary contexts.
2025 Winner: Brittany Acors, Ph.D.
Brittany Acors, Ph.D. was selected as the winner of the sixth annual New Scholar Essay Prize for Catholic Studies in the Americas. Her winning essay, “‘God wanted me to have another chance’: American Catholic Women, Disability, and Vocation in Polio Memoirs,” was published in U.S. Catholic Historian in 2024.
As part of the award, Dr. Acors presented a talk at Fordham titled “Disability, Vocation, and Catholicism” on March 3, 2026. Drawing from her research on American Catholic women who survived polio, the lecture explored how Catholic culture shaped survivors’ understandings of suffering, disability, vocation, and service in the decades before and after the development of the polio vaccine.
2024 Winner: Susan Bigelow Reynolds, Ph.D.
For the 5th Annual New Scholar Essay Prize for Catholic Studies in the Americas, the award was given to Susan Bigelow Reynolds, Ph.D., for her essay “‘I Will Surely Have You Deported’: Undocumenting Clergy Sexual Abuse in an Immigrant Community.” The essay was published in Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation in 2023.
The prize committee also chose to name Dr. Andrew Walker-Cornetta and his essay “‘These Are Our Saints’: A Lourdes Shrine, the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children, and the Catholic Remaking of Cognitive Disability” in the category of “Honorable Mention.” Walker-Cornetta’s essay was published in January 2024 in American Patroness: Marian Shrines and the Making of U.S. Catholicism.
2023 Winner: Raul Zegarra, Ph.D
In the 4th Annual New Scholar Essay Prize for Catholic Studies in the Americas, the award was presented to Raúl E. Zegarra, Ph.D., for his essay “The Preferential Option of the Poor: Liberation Theology, Pentecostalism, and the New Forms of Sacralization,” published in the European Journal of Sociology/Archives Européennes de Sociologie in 2023.
In a talk entitled, "Paradoxical Reformations in Latin America: Catholics, Evangelicals, and the Crisis of Democracy," Dr. Zegarra discussed the contemporary crisis of democracy in Latin America, with particular attention to Peru, examining how both Catholic and Evangelical communities have struggled to sustain their influence in promoting democratic and Christian ideals while contrasting these challenges with earlier moments of effective religious engagement in public life.
2022 Winner: Brian Clites, Ph.D.
In the third annual New Scholar Essay Prize for Catholic Studies in the Americas, the award was given to Brian Clites, Ph.D. for his essay “A Theology of Voice: VOCAL and the Catholic Clergy Abuse Survivor Movement,” published in U.S. Catholic Historian 40.1.
Clites’s article traces the origins of VOCAL (Victims of Clergy Abuse Linkup), one of the earliest and most influential advocacy organizations for survivors of childhood clergy sexual abuse in the United States. A precursor to SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), VOCAL was notable for articulating the spiritual dimensions of abuse, which its leaders described as “soul murder.” Through this framework, Clites highlights how survivors developed a theological language to name their experiences and advocate for recognition and reform within the Church.
2021 Winner: Dr. Kelly Schmidt, Ph.D.
Dr. Kelly Schmidt, Ph.D. was selected as the second winner of the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies’ New Scholar Essay Prize for Catholic Studies in the Americas. Her winning essay, “‘Regulations for Our Black People’: Reconstructing the Experiences of Enslaved People in the United States through Jesuit Records,” was published through the International Symposium on Jesuit Studies in 2021.
Dr. Schmidt’s work examines the lives of enslaved people in Jesuit records, using sources such as bills of sale, sacramental records, and correspondence to reconstruct histories that have often been hidden in the archive. Her research contributes to broader efforts within Jesuit institutions to reckon honestly with the history of slavery and to support the work of reconciliation, healing, and reparation.
Dr. Schmidt gave a talk entitled “Unearthing Buried Narratives: Reconstructing the Experiences of Enslaved People Through Jesuit Records,” exploring how Jesuit archives can be used to reconstruct the lives, resistance, and faith of enslaved people.
2020 Winner: Tuan Hoang, Ph.D.
Dr. Tuan Hoang, Ph.D. was selected as the inaugural winner of the New Scholar Essay Prize for Catholic Studies in the Americas. His winning essay, “Ultramontanism, Nationalism, and the Fall of Saigon: Historicizing the Vietnamese American Catholic Experience,” was published in American Catholic Studies in 2019.
Dr. Hoang’s essay examines the experiences of Vietnamese Catholic refugees in the United States after the fall of Saigon, exploring themes of exile, national loss, adaptation, and religious identity. His work expands the story of American Catholicism by bringing greater attention to the history, faith, and resilience of Vietnamese Catholics in the U.S.