A fourth year student from the Australian National University's School of History has been announced as the winner of the Professional Historians Association NSW’s Public History Prize 2011.

Rosa Grahame's winning essay, 'Mountains out of molehills: Black Mountain and the Human Imagination’ was selected from a strong field by this year’s judge, Dr Shirley Fitzgerald, professional historian and former historian for the City of Sydney Council.

Dr Fitzgerald praised Ms Grahame’s essay for employing a wide range of sources to examine ‘changing understandings of the relationships between citizens and their landscapes, using the case study of Black Mountain, Canberra’.

Ms Grahame originally wrote the winning essay as part of the coursework for Researching and Writing History, a course offered by the School of History, which focuses on methodology and includes field trips to research institutions such as the National Library of Australia, the National Archives and the War Memorial.

The Public History Prize was presented at the PHA NSW’s ‘History in July’ on Monday 2 July 2012 at History House in Macquarie Street, Sydney.

Researching and Writing History is being offered by the School of History in Semester 2, 2012. For more information about Researching and Writing History and other History courses on offer visit Study at ANU 2012