2013 Patricia Stocking Brown Research Award Recipient Named

ALBANY, N.Y. (May 15, 2013) - The University Libraries at the University at Albany, SUNY presented the 2013 Patricia Stocking Brown Fund for Feminist Social Justice Research Award to University at Albany graduate student Sean Heather McGraw today. McGraw, a fifth year doctoral candidate in the Department of History, received $500 for her project to research the history, influence and uniqueness of the lesbian community in the Capital District of New York since the 1970s. Professor Gerald Zahavi of the Department of History will serve as faculty advisor to the project. </img>

The annual Award honors Professor Patricia Stocking Brown, who taught Biology and Women's and Minorities' Studies for 35 years at nearby Siena College. Trained at the University of Michigan in comparative endocrinology, and a self-described feminist, Patricia Stocking Brown was the first female faculty member in the sciences at Siena. There she established an extraordinary career as a caring and rigorous teacher and researcher who promoted student research, feminist analytical thinking and evidence-based medicine. Brown was the wife of University at Albany Distinguished Teaching Professor of Biology Emeritus Stephen C. Brown.

Professor Patricia Stocking Brown died in 2004 from metastatic breast cancer. The University at Albany Libraries' Department of Special Collections & Archives holds Brown's papers along with those of the grassroots nonprofit Capital Region Action Against Breast Cancer (CRAAB!), which she co-founded in 1997 and the New York State Breast Cancer Network, a coalition of grassroots breast cancer groups around the state, she co-founded soon after.

Donors from the University at Albany's Women's Studies and Biology Departments, including Professor of Women's Studies Emerita Bonnie Spanier, established The Patricia Stocking Brown Fund for Feminist Social Justice Research in University Libraries to support and promote students' interest in and use of primary materials related to the study of social justice, housed in the Department of Special Collections & Archives. Award applicants must be a registered University at Albany graduate or undergraduate student and currently engaged in or planning a research project/class paper related to feminist social justice. Awardees must utilize at least one manuscript or archival collection at the University as part of his or her research.