Congratulations to all our recipients of the Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies, an award for students looking to participate in a heritage studies learning activity abroad.
2023 Recipients
Annika Berendt is a first-year graduate student in the Faculty of Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Victoria, where they study Greek art and archaeology. Their primary area of study is cross-cultural interactions and regional identity in the work of migrant craftspeople in Archaic Greece. Annika is also interested in the impact of methodological and theoretical approaches in modern scholarship, and the application of post-colonial ideology in archaeology. With their research, Annika aims to contribute a new understanding of migrant potters and painters, craft production, and regional identity in antiquity.
The Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies will support Annika’s participation in the 2024 Eastern Boeotia Archaeological Project’s field school in Greece at the site of Ancient Eleon, where they will work with the ceramic material. Annika is grateful for the donors’ generosity as this trip is essential to conducting research for their thesis. Annika is particularly interested in how social factors impact our understanding of past societies and their material culture. Annika’s research on pottery as both art and artifact that represents cultural and social values will contribute to scholarship in heritage studies.
Sydney Kadagies is a graduate student completing a MA in Public History at the University of Victoria. Sydney’s primary area of study is war tourism, specifically related to the Second World War in Europe. She is passionate about studying the connection between memorialization, commemoration, and tourism in this context.
The Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies will go a long way in supporting her academic goals, particularly her participation in the 2024 I-witness field school. This field school gives students an opportunity to travel to memorials and historic sites across Germany, Poland, and Austria, to study the history and memorialization of the Holocaust. Through this experience, Sydney hopes to gain a deeper understanding of how such memorials have been created and interpreted. The field school will advance Sydney’s final project for the MA in Public History; her project, which will explore intersections between war history, “dark tourism” and public representations of the past, gains in importance as the Second World War passes out of living memory. Her project stands to make a difference in how we think about such sites going forward.
Beyond her current research, this opportunity is crucial in preparing her for a future career in Public History. Sydney’s eventual career aspirations are centralised in the domain of public history – reaching others through historical sites and working in museums and/or with associations involved in the presentation of history to the public. Sydney is honoured to be this year’s award recipient and is incredibly grateful to the Kalman family for their gracious contribution to her educational journey.
2022 Recipients
Alicia Ward is a graduate student at the University of Victoria in the Department of Germanic and Slavic studies. Alicia’s primary area of study is Slavic studies, with a focus on Ukrainian and Russian cultural studies. Funds from the Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies will be used for the 2023 European memory tour in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Austria and Italy.
Participants on the tour will visit sites of memory including former concentration and death camps, museums, and memorials, while engaging with scholars and activists in the community. This research trip is invaluable to Alicia’s graduate studies, which focuses on sites of memory and Holocaust memorials in Ukraine. Participating in the European memory tour would not be possible without the support of the donors generosity and she is grateful to be named this year’s recipient. Alicia hopes to further develop her understanding of sites of memory and prepare her for future work in Ukrainian memorial projects.
ÍY SȻÁĆEL. Pia Russell is a doctoral student in the Department of History at UVic. Pia is also a librarian within Special Collections and University Archives at UVic Libraries where she curates the British Columbia Historical Textbooks Collection. A 2019 graduate of UVic’s Master of Arts in Public History program offered jointly through Continuing Studies’ Cultural Resource Management program and the Department of History, Pia is passionate about the educational responsibilities cultural institutions have for transformative heritage engagement, particularly to youth audiences. With over twenty years of professional experience in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (the ‘GLAM’ sector), her scholarship emphasizes decolonizing, anti-racist, feminist, and inclusive approaches towards studies involving the history of the book, childhood, and education.
The Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies will enable Pia to complete a research trip studying historical textbook collections at various European research institutions throughout the summer of 2023. In particular, the Kalman Award will support her participation in a Georg Eckert Institute Fellowship at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media in Braunschweig, Germany. Pia is sincerely grateful to the Kalman family for championing her scholarly endeavours towards the public engagement of heritage. HÍ,SW̱ḴE SIÁM.
2021 Recipient
Mira Engelbrecht is a fourth year History Major in the Honours program at the University of Victoria where she is also completing her Minor in Germanic Studies. Mira’s primary area of study is European history, with a focus on German history. Mira will be using the Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies to attend a 6-week intensive language and culture immersion school run by Saint Mary’s University in Kassel, Germany in the summer of 2022. Through in-class participation, assignments, presentations and immersion in German language and culture, Mira hopes to further develop her intercultural understanding and prepare herself for further studies in the area of Public History.
2019 Recipients
Janice Niemann is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the Department of English. Janice will be using the Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies for a research trip this summer to visit the British library, Cuckfield Park, and the Attingham Summer School, where participants spend two and a half weeks visiting historically significant British country houses, exploring their grounds, and attending lectures on their conservation, archives, grounds, and history. This research trip is invaluable to Janice’s doctoral research which focuses on garden spaces as sites of deviance or transgression in nineteenth-century British novels. This opportunity would not be possible without the support of the Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies. She is grateful for the donors’ generosity and honoured to be named this year’s recipient.
Maria Buhne is a graduate student at the University of Victoria in the Department of Art History and Visual Studies. Funds from the Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies will be used to support her research in the UK at Hilltop Cottage house museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum in 2019. Learning directly from the success of the UK National Trust in preserving national historical and heritage sites, Maria hopes to make a positive impact on the safeguarding of Canadian cultural heritage as critical sites of education and cultural understanding.
Award information
For information about awards available to Cultural Resource Management participants please see the Awards, scholarships, and bursaries page.
Upcoming submission deadlines:
| Yosef Wosk Travel Award | Aug. 1 |
| Kalman Award for International Heritage Studies | Nov. 15 |