Ithaca College

Alyssa Rodriguez, senior English Major, has won the Daniel Walden Prize "awarded annually to an outstanding emerging scholar in popular culture studies" by the Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture Association for her work on the trope of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" in film and Young Adult fiction.

The Walden Prize is given to the top undergraduate or graduate presenter at the association's annual conference.  Alyssa received it for her presentation, "She Contains Multitudes: Debunking the Myth of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl in Paper Towns."  The paper is part of a larger research project she completed during her time as an  H&S Summer Scholar in 2016.