Student research Awards

ARARA believes that one of the best ways to support rock art research is to support students who are pursuing rock art related research during their academic careers. These awards are available to students anywhere in the world, but preference is given to projects occurring in the Western Hemisphere. Students can be enrolled in a variety of programs such as anthropology, archaeology, Indigenous studies, art history, fine arts, chemistry/physics, geology, linguistics, or geography. For example, this award is open to students in chemistry working on rock art dating, in linguistics working on interpretation, and in fine arts looking for aesthetic/production-oriented similarities, etc., or pursuing a discipline that we haven't mentioned that will benefit rock art research.

ARARA recognizes that the scope and costs of research projects can be substantially different at the undergraduate, master, and PhD levels of education. As a result, we have three different awards that recognizes each of these levels of academic pursuit. Only one award will be funded per year at each level of academic research.

Award funding:
Undergraduate: Not to exceed $500
Master: Not to exceed $1500
PhD: Not to exceed $2500

Allowable expenses:
Award funds are designated to offset research expenses associated with the completion of a student research project as part of a student’s academic program (e.g., thesis, dissertation, curriculum development [K-12], or peer-reviewed academic paper). The award supports:

• travel to rock art sites;
• field work with a qualified mentor or program;
• laboratory work to further research study;
• literature research;
• reasonable out-of-pocket travel costs (airfare, mileage, meals, accommodation);
• field or laboratory equipment;
• materials for documentation and/or analysis.

This research award cannot be used to pay for salaries, travel to meetings to present research, or indirect overhead costs (for example any cost or administrative fees from academic institution).

Qualified Applicant:
Students must be actively enrolled at either a traditional or non-traditional equivalent (NTE) degree program to qualify for the awards. Prior recipients in good standing can re-apply for additional projects or research, once the initial award has been fully completed, as long as the applicant is still in a collegiate program or NTE. Past applicants who were not selected are also encouraged to re-apply if their project is still ongoing or if they have continued their education by enrolling in a higher-level collegiate program or NTE. For example, a student can receive an award for a Master’s degree project and then re-submit for a PhD project.

Submissions:
For the 2026 Awards, applicants must submit their research award application to the Committee Chair at ararastudentawards@rockart.us by Friday, January 23, 2026. The application should include:

• Research proposal no more than 3 pages in length (excluding references) that describes objectives and methodology of the research project, Indigenous involvement, impacts to the study/education of rock art, type of expected product (thesis, dissertation, or peer-reviewed paper), and timeframe/ability to complete the stated research. A template is available.
• Budget and budget justification
• Up to 5 images may be included with the application on a separate document. The decision to include images with an application is optional and does not factor into the ranking of individual applications.
• Two letters of support, including one from the thesis/dissertation chair or academic mentor that certifies that the student is conducting the proposed research along with their expected date of degree completion.
• ARARA has a student mentorship program that can provide students with feedback on their submission before the final draft is turned into the Education Committee. Contact Karen Steelman ksteelman@shumla.org if you are interested in working with a mentor for the student research award application.

Process:
Proposals are reviewed by the Education Committee and approved by the ARARA Board. All applicants will be notified of the committee’s decision by March 1, 2026, whether their application was successful or not. Award recipients are paid at the time of the approval of the award. Once accepted, the award recipient is required to submit a 2–3-minute acceptance video and project summary that will be shown at the 2026 ARARA conference.

All award recipients are required to submit a 3-5 paragraph update (with 2-3 images) to La Pintura for publication prior to the next year’s Annual Meeting. La Pintura is the quarterly ARARA newsletter that is sent digitally to all members. These short updates should include research progress, schedule updates, and interesting/unusual observations or data.

A “Final Report” (e.g., thesis, dissertation, peer-reviewed publication) should be turned into the ARARA Education Committee ararastudentawards@rockart.us at the completion of the project. We also request that the ARARA Student Research Award be acknowledged in any publications resulting from the student project.

Award recipients are encouraged to present their research at future ARARA conferences (2026 conference is in Great Falls, Montana June 25-29) and submit articles to the American Indian Rock Art publication.

Additional Benefits:
All applicants receive a free annual ARARA membership for the award year.

Any student—whether a successful award recipient or not—is eligible for a Student Travel Award ($500) if presenting a paper or poster at an ARARA Annual Conference.

Questions and other ARARA Awards:
Questions regarding the Student Research Awards, or the application process should be addressed to the Committee Chair and submitted at ararastudentawards@rockart.us. Other ARARA sponsored awards can be found at https://arara.wildapricot.org/Awards.

Past recipients include (award not given in years not listed):

2019: Levan Losaberidze
2020: Jordan Schaefer
2021: Robert McBride (Undergrad)
2021: Lucy Gill (PhD)
2022: Jack Hubler-Dayton (Masters) and Mairead Dorey (PhD)
2023: Aleko Zavradashvili (Undergrad), Milena Ramierez (Masters), and Lucia Gutierrez (PhD)
2024: Maxwell Forton (PhD), Rachel George (PhD), Keely Yanito (MA), and Juan Camilo Argoti Gomez (BA)
2025: Tomás Paya (PhD); Jennifer Leiva (Masters)