Congratulations to the 2026 Druze Student Paper Prize Winner

CCAS is pleased to announce that Nour Rayess, a 2026 graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, has been awarded the 2026 Druze Student Paper Prize for her paper, “The Volume of Silence: Regional Museums in the Chouf of Lebanon.”

Established in 2025 with support from the American Druze Foundation, the Druze Student Paper Prize recognizes outstanding undergraduate and graduate research on Druze history and society at U.S. institutions and encourages students to engage more deeply with the field.

Rayess graduated from UCLA with a BA in History, receiving Highest Departmental Honors and graduating summa cum laude. As a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, she spent two years researching her honors thesis, “Living Memory: Museums in Lebanon.” Her prize-winning paper is adapted from the thesis’s third chapter, which examines regional museums in Lebanon’s Chouf region and the ways their treatment—or omission—of modern history shapes public memory of the Lebanese Civil War.

In her broader research, Rayess approaches museum exhibitions as primary sources, examining museums as sites where historical memory is produced, contested, and sometimes silenced. She is currently applying to PhD programs in History, with research interests in public history, museums, and Middle Eastern history.