Fairfield University undergraduate student Ellie Dodd ’27 and graduate student Sidharth Kumar Pradhan were awarded the 2026 Library Research Prizes. The award recipients were honored for their outstanding scholarship during a reception hosted by the DiMenna-Nyselius Library.
The two annual $1,000 prizes—one for an undergraduate and one for a graduate student—recognize exemplary scholarship through effective research strategies and demonstrated use of library resources, services, and staff expertise.
Undergraduate Recipient
Ellie Dodd
A junior in the John Charles Meditz College of Arts and Sciences, Dodd majors in environmental studies with minors in biology, peace and justice studies, and American studies. Her winning project was completed for the “Roots of American Culture” class taught by Peter Bayers, PhD, professor and chair of the English Department.
"Pushed into the Past: Evaluating the Preservation of Indigenous Place-Names in Hingham, Massachusetts" examines how the town of Hingham preserves Indigenous geographic names while minimizing Indigenous history and contemporary presence in public narratives. Focusing on Wompatuck State Park, Dodd’s project compares representations from local government and historical organizations with narratives from the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag and argues that the practice of using words like Wompatuck without meaningful historical context reinforces settler colonial narratives and Indigenous erasure.
Graduate Recipient
Sidharth Kumar Pradhan
A graduate student in the Charles F. Dolan School of Business, Pradhan is pursuing a dual master’s degree in business analytics and finance. His winning project was completed across two thesis courses, supervised by Sidike Paheding, PhD, associate professor and chair of the Computer Science Department in the School of Engineering and Computing.
"StagAI: A Hybrid Deep Learning and Signal-Processing Approach for Multi-Modal Aerial Translation” develops a model combining deep learning and signal processing techniques to automatically translate images between various sensor domains. Such translation is useful for disaster response, military surveillance, and environmental monitoring, where images from different camera sensors may be available at different times but must, nevertheless, be compared or combined.
Pradhan’s model was tested across multiple translation tasks, such as radar-to-optical and thermal-to-color, and earned a top-five ranking at the international Multi-Modal Aerial View Imagery Challenge: Translation (MAVIC-T) at the 2026 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.
Selection Process
Candidates for the Library Research Prize submitted their research projects, bibliographies, statements of faculty support, and essays describing their research strategies and use of library collections and services. The projects were judged on the following criteria:
- Sophistication, originality, and/or unusual depth or breadth in the use of Library collections and/or services.
- Exceptional ability to locate, select, evaluate, and effectively use resources in the creation of a project in any format that shows originality and/or has the potential to lead to original research in the future.
- Evidence of significant personal learning in the methods of research and the information gathering process and the development of a habit of research and inquiry.
Award Reception
The 2026 prize winners were honored at a reception hosted by the library. Dodd and Pradhan discussed their research projects and took question from the audience at the event. Their faculty mentors also offered remarks.
Dr. Bayers praised Dodd’s scholarship as advanced and sophisticated, likening her research project to that of a colleague. “I admire you as a student,” he said. “I thank you for challenging me intellectually and inspiring me.”
Dr. Paheding, via a prepared statement, acknowledged Pradhan’s meaningful growth as a researcher. “Sidharth has shown exceptional rigor and initiative in his work, and over time he has grown into an increasingly independent and confident researcher,” he wrote. “The quality and significance of his research reflect his strong analytical skills and his commitment to scholarly excellence.”
At the close of the event, Dodd and Pradhan were congratulated by attendees, including University Provost Christine Siegel, PhD.
