An Exclusive Interview with 2025 Markel Prize Winner Zia O.

By Camille W. ‘26

Camille: What was the name of your term paper, and what did you write it about?

Zia: My term paper was called “Somewhere Over the Rainbow City: The Construction of American Utopia at World’s Fairs in the Great Depression.” I analyzed the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and the 1939 New York World’s Fair and argued which values, aesthetics, and narratives Americans thought would pull the nation out of the Depression and into a utopia. 

Camille: I remember you were nominated for the Markel Prize last year as a sophomore. How did you build on that experience and refine your term paper skills to secure the big win this time?

Zia: I don’t know if the sophomores still do this, but after I finished my sophomore paper, we all had to write letters to ourselves explaining what we did well and what we’d like to improve on last year…. My sophomore self’s main suggestions were writing shorter, more focused body paragraphs, starting with more narrative to ease my reader into my paper, and setting more deadlines to myself and actually sticking to them.

Camille: Adding on to the last question, what advice would you give to a sophomore or junior about to write their term paper next year? 

Zia: My biggest piece of advice is to pick a topic that is interesting to YOU, even if you think it won’t sound as impressive to your teacher. You’re going to be researching one thing for the next several months, and you can burn out so quickly if you’re bored by your own topic.

Camille: In his assembly announcement, DSong praised your term paper for its incredible depth and breadth of research. How did you approach researching, and do you have any advice for conducting strong research?

Zia: I went full-on cultural immersion for this paper….I recommend looking at the digitized collections from the National Archives, the New York Public Library, and the Library of Congress….I was coincidentally in New York over Intraterm, so I stopped by the Public Library and visited the American History Reading Room. The librarians gave me their phone number and told me to reach out if I needed access to any of their digital archives, and I took advantage of that later! I also borrowed my cousin’s UChicago Newsbank account to access local Chicago newspapers (funny enough, she went to CPS and also won the Markel Prize!).

Camille: What was the hardest part of writing your paper?

Zia: The hardest part was absolutely deciding what would make it into my final paper, and what would be cut. I think I had over 80 sources in NoodleTools, and I used around 40 in my final paper. I know it hurts to cut stuff from your argument, but your paper will be better if you streamline and focus your argument as much as possible.

Camille: If you were to write another term paper, what would be your topic of choice and why? Or if there was a term paper in Asian Worlds, then what would your topic be?

Zia: I love this question! Considering the current political climate and my interest in cultural history, I’d probably start by researching styles of art, architecture, fashion, and visual propaganda associated with fascist regimes and write a paper about my findings. If there was an Asian Worlds term paper, I would’ve written it on Sino-Soviet cooperation propaganda because I’m really fascinated by the Bolshevik Revolution and the USSR, and because some of the propaganda posters are unbelievably homoerotic (seriously, look it up).

Camille: You’re deeply involved in STEM at school—from being part of the STEM cohort to leading the Science Olympiad. In what ways, if any, do your interests in STEM shape how you approach writing about history?

Zia: Because World’s Fairs advertised science and technology to advertise American intellect and get people excited for the future, some STEM research directly found its way into my paper…. Science is really about looking at data first and then drawing a conclusion, and that’s how I approach papers. When I start writing a paper, I have no idea what my thesis is. I just start reading about my topic, and then I let my evidence speak to me and dictate what my argument should be.

Camille: What are you most proud of in your paper?

Zia: I’m proud of my argument itself. I had to reconcile many different cultural aspects of the fair, ranging from Art Deco architecture to a promotion of white supremacy and capitalism, and I struggled with the mechanics of my argument for a really long time. I’m glad I found one underlying ideal, the construction of a utopian society, to connect all of the different pieces. My argument was more complex than it was sophomore year, and I felt like a real historian writing this paper.

Camille: Is there anything you wish you had done differently?

Zia: Do not discuss grades with other people. I made the mistake of discussing grades with a person very close to me, and I think it ended up making both of us feel bad about ourselves. To that person, I’m sincerely sorry, I’m so proud of you, and I love you.

Camille: Lastly, what do you plan on doing with your $400 prize?!

Zia: My friends and I are trying to go to Mexico for a senior trip, and this will help me save up! I am kinda tempted to blow it all on something random, like renting a steamroller, doing some serious damage to my bank account at a flea market, or placing an ad on a billboard with an inside joke for one of my friends.