|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Brooke Morey of Redwood City is being recognized as a top graduating senior and will be awarded the University Medal from University of California at Davis for excellence in undergraduate studies, outstanding community service, and the promise of future scholarship and contributions to society.
“In her scholarly achievements, her ethical outlook, and her personal story, she truly represents the best of UC Davis undergraduates,” Beth E. Levy, associate professor of music, wrote on behalf of the College of Letters and Science honors committee that nominated Morey for the medal. “She is a stellar student, ambitious and cutting-edge researcher, and empathetic citizen of our community and the world.”
Morey will receive this award along with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology at Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center on June 14.
In her time at UC Davis, Morey studied, and has become fluent in, Arabic, investigated human rights, including that of cultural heritage, as well as conducting, presenting, and publishing scientific research.
Morey aims to be a professor and hopes to lead the change in Egyptology from a colonial discipline to one that protects cultural heritage.
“I am here to push the culture forward and transform Egyptology into a modern, just, and human rights-oriented field,” Morey said. “It’s important to value not just the past of a country but to appreciate the people and culture of the now.”
To help pursue this goal Morey has worked as director of special projects for the Interdepartmental Program in Human Rights Studies. There, she has conducted research and interviews to support the establishment of a UNESCO chair in human rights and the humanities on campus.
Morey has also helped draft a curriculum on human rights that is being taught in public schools in the Fresno area through the California History-Social Science Project.
“I didn’t think that at age 22 I could write a curriculum and meet with UNESCO officials to advance human rights,” Morey said. “It’s been very interesting and very fulfilling.”
She was inspired to become an Egyptologist at the age of 8 after reading the Magic Tree House Book, Mummies in the Morning.
“I was just hooked,” Morey said. “Every decision I’ve made in regard to my academic career has been with that in mind.”
Morey’s research has been supported by the Hanson Family Undergraduate Research Publication Award, the Provost’s Undergraduate Fellowship, an Undergraduate Research Center Travel Award, and the Sacramento Archeological Society.
Morey has gained experience in the field interning three summers at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, being a student assistant at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Sherm Museum of Art at UC Davis from 2021-22, and during her study of fantasy literature at Oxford University in the summer of 2022.
Morey has also participated in a range of extracurricular activities including serving as team captain of the Women’s Club Volleyball team for two seasons as well as vice president in 2023 and alumni coordinator, and has been involved with Students for Justice in Palestine for over a year.
Moery will be continuing her studies in August at Indiana University Bloomington in a two-year master’s program in Egyptology and will also study the Arabic language.
Along with receiving coverage for her tuition, she has been given $20,000 in annual support through the U.S. Department of Education’s Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship Program.
Next summer, Moery will be traveling to Egypt for the first initial fieldwork in archaeology in the Valley of the Kings, the burial site of many pharaohs.
