The Melvin Lurie Memorial Prize was created in 1988 to honor students or recent alumni for outstanding academic performance. The prize includes a certificate, inclusion on the Melvin Lurie Memorial Prize Plaque (in Bolton 842), and $1,500 from the Melvin Lurie Memorial fund. The student/alum is honored at the annual Lurie Ceremony held in late September. The prize is limited to one student or recent alum per year.

Prize winners are selected by the Lurie Committee at UWM, a committee composed of faculty associated with the MHRLR program and a member of the Lurie family. Nominations are sought in May of each year, and the committee determines the prize winner at its annual meeting in July.

Recipients to date include:

  • Elise White, 2023
  • Katerina Ekonomou and Andrew Stark, 2022
  • Monique Miller, 2021
  • Cassie Alfheim, 2020
  • Melissa Ellis, 2019
  • Dragana (Gana) Zivanovic, 2019
  • Kenwaun Flinn, 2018
  • Mary Greifenkamp, 2017
  • Jenny Franke, 2016
  • Trisha Adams, 2015
  • Navjit Dang, 2014
  • Samuel Hoffman, 2013
  • Daniel Hereth, 2012
  • Margo Meverden, 2011
  • Margaret Vollmer, 2010
  • Amy Pamperin, 2009
  • Lindsey Tauber, 2008
  • Jessika Gibson, 2007
  • Christopher R. Morris, 2006
  • Marcy M. Fisher, 2005
  • Sara A. Coffman, 2004v
  • Linda L. Daley and Anne M. Wilson, 2003
  • Deborah K. Wallendal, 2002
  • Terrance P. LaCasse, 2001
  • Susan M. Kulinski, 2000
  • Kristen E. Gaarder, 1999
  • Ann H. Hendrix, 1998
  • James R. Carlson, 1997
  • Amy M. Krymkowski, 1996
  • Barbara R. Follmann, 1995
  • Roger Reinke, 1994
  • Mark K. Rosenbaum, 1993
  • Kimberly C. Whiteside, 1992
  • Thomas J. Buyarski, 1991
  • Samuel A. Froiland, 1990
  • Jacquelyn Peterson, 1989
  • Gregory Leifer, 1988

We are very proud of all the Memorial Prize winners, and look forward to many more.

UWM Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge in Milwaukee that we are on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present.   |   To learn more, visit the Electa Quinney Institute website.