Congratulations to the winners of the 2026 Chynn Ethics Paper Prize!
Generously funded by the Chynn Family Foundation, the Fordham University Center for Ethics Education essay competition seeks to inspire deep self-reflection on ethical and moral concepts encountered through personal experience or as an engaged member of society. Since its founding in 2012, The Dr. K. York and M. Noelle Chynn Prize in Ethics and Morality has recognized many outstanding winners. This year, three papers were selected from a pool of undergraduate submissions to receive ‘Best Essay,’ ‘First Runner-Up,’ and ‘Second Runner-Up’ awards. All winning essays, along with any honorable mentions, will be featured on The Ethics and Society Blog in the coming weeks.
Best Essay ($1,000): Nadia Garriga
First Runner-Up ($500): Giovanni Porrini-Fe
Second Runner-Up ($300): Theresa Gormley
Nadia Garriga was awarded best essay for her paper “Photographing Humanity: When Documentation Becomes Exploitation.” Garriga recounts photographing an unhoused man at the Grand Bazaar without his consent, only to later reflect on the power dynamic she had imposed over him, one echoed in iconic works like Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother.” Drawing on humanism and the concept of dignity, she argues that photographers hold an ethical responsibility toward their subjects, realized through consent, transparency, and compensation. Though she acknowledges the complexity of applying this standard universally, she concludes that confronting her own ethical misstep pushed her toward personal growth and a deeper understanding of her individual power. Garriga (FCLC ’27) is double majoring in New Media & Digital Design with double minors in Political Science and Italian.
Awarded first runner-up was Giovanni Porrini-Fe for his paper “Medicine Can Be Correct and Still Incomplete.” Porrini-Fe draws on two personal experiences, volunteering with a physician and watching his grandmother’s health deteriorate following a tripled medication regimen, to expose a troubling gap in modern healthcare. While every clinician involved acted within their role and no guideline was violated, no one was responsible for his grandmother as a whole person across time. By tracking her vitals daily and collaborating with a trusted physician, he identified a pattern of overmedication that the fragmented system had missed, and her health eventually recovered. Drawing on Aristotle’s distinction between technical skill and practical wisdom, he argues that ethical medicine requires more than precision and compliance; it requires structures that ensure sustained attention to the full patient narrative. Porrini-Fe (FCLC ’28) is studying biochemistry.
Awarded second runner-up was Theresa Gormley for her paper “How Online Cringe Culture Codifies Conformity as Desirable.” Gormley draws on her own experience growing up alongside social media to examine how cringe culture has evolved from a tool for calling out genuinely harmful behavior into one that penalizes anyone who deviates from white, heterosexual, wealthy, and able-bodied standards. The result is a culture of constant surveillance, particularly damaging during adolescence, that commodifies social missteps and rewards conformity over authenticity. She highlights how this pressure has driven young people to suppress their personalities and disengage sincerely from their own lives, citing interviews with students who described deep insecurities shaped by the fear of being perceived as cringe. Gormley concludes that as cringe culture permeates beyond online spaces into everyday life, its enforcement of homogeneity carries broader dangers, and that unless society begins to receive difference with openness rather than contempt, conformity will continue to be mistaken for success. Gormley (FCRH ’26) is studying biological sciences with a minor in bioethics.
Honorable Mention
Bianca Barreiro (FCRH ’26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “ Environmental Racism”
General Science Major, Bioethics Minor
For more information about the prize, past winners, and submission requirements for 2027, please visit the Chynn Ethics Paper Prize webpage. The contest is is open to ALL undergraduates.
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