Winners of the 2026 Mendel Sato Research Award
WashU Libraries are excited to announce the winners of the sixth annual Mendel Sato Research Award. Congratulations to Washington University students Mj Jones and Frauke Thielecke for their excellent projects that explore and highlight unique primary source material from the Julian Edison Department of Special Collections.
Mj Jones (BA History, ’26) won the undergraduate award for her senior honor thesis, “Mapping a World’s Fair: A Comparative Analysis of Native American Experience at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.” Jones’ thesis is an examination of the experiences of Native American at the 1904 World’s Fair examining multiple locations and how they were participants, performers, and visitors in those sites. Using material from the St. Louis 1904 World’s Fair Collection, she analyzed photographs, maps, and other primary sources to explore this under-represented aspect of the World’s Fair.
Dalen Wakeley-Smith, an assistant professor of history, and Jones’s thesis advisor wrote in a statement of support, “Her work shows how a close reading of primary sources can lead to interesting and innovative interpretations of space, mobility, and questions around race which were at the forefront of American’s minds in 1904.”
Frauke Thielecke (MA Comparative Literature, MA Film & Media Studies, ’26) received the graduate award for her research paper, “Between Brushstroke and Cut: Editing Leon Golub’s Persona in Kartemquin’s Golub (1988),” written for Assistant Professor John Powers’s class, Film Historiography, in fall 2025. Thielecke conducted research in the extensive Kartemquin Films Collection acquired by WashU Libraries in 2020.
Due to the unique nature of the collection, she was able to access internal Kartemquin records relating to fundraising, grant applications, production notes, correspondence, material on editing, promotion material, and photographs. The collection offers researchers insight into the decisions filmmakers make in crafting a finished film, and Thielecke’s research details that process using those materials and with an original interview she conducted with the film’s director and founder of Kartemquin Films, Gordon Quinn.
Powers wrote in his letter of recommendation, “I take Thielecke’s essay as exemplary of the research process. Throughout its composition, Thielecke committed herself to the hypothesis formation, testing, refining, and reflection that are essential components of historical argumentation.”
We are delighted to share both projects on WashU’s Scholarly Repository:
Between Brushstroke and Cut: Editing Leon Golub’s Persona in Kartemquin’s Golub (1988)
You can view past winning projects on the Mendel Sato Research Award Projects page on WashU’s Scholarly Repository.