Graduate Open Access Awards

To celebrate Open Access Week 2025, the CSU Libraries Graduate Open Access Awards shine a spotlight on the outstanding work of CSU researchers who champion open access, expanding the reach of their scholarship, and making knowledge freely available to all. Upon acceptance to their chosen journal, these award recipients will have their open access article publishing charges fully funded by CSU Libraries.

Gamze Badakul

Champion of Open Access

Gamze is a fourth-year graduate student in the Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences (ERHS) Department. She works in Dr. Kato’s lab and is supported by the Turkish Consulate General Education Attaché Office for her PhD studies. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of the DNA damage response to better understand how genomic instability contributes to cancer development. She is dedicated to advancing cancer biology through molecular and cellular research.

Trevor Keevil

Winner

Trevor is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology and Geography and a research assistant in the Laboratory for 3D Imaging and Analysis. His research investigates the role of human hunters in the Ice Age extinction of North and South American megafauna. He does this by examining the butchery marks ancient humans left on megafauna fossils, including mammoths, mastodons, and giant ground sloths. His project combines high-resolution 3D imaging and Bayesian statistics to identify the cause of these fossilized bone markings by comparing them to experimentally created bone markings from controlled studies of human butchery, carnivore feeding, and ungulate trampling. This research helps archaeologists more precisely identify when past humans hunted and butchered large mammals in the archaeological record.

Emily Gross

Winner

Emily is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and a second-year PhD student in the Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources. Her research explores citizen science, the drivers of environmental behavior among outdoor recreators, and environmental communication through pottery.