India, April 18 -- Eleanor Paynter, a researcher and postdoctoral fellow with Cornell's Migrations initiative, received the International Studies Association's 2021 Lynne Rienner Publishers Award for Best Dissertation in Human Rights in a ceremony on April 12.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants embark on treacherous journeys each year, yet most of their stories go untold or are reduced to statistics. Paynter is working to learn and share the lived experiences of these migrants. She completed her dissertation, "Witnessing Emergency: Testimonial Narratives of Precarious Migration to Italy," at Ohio State University in 2020.

Paynter's work is pathbreaking, critical and urgent, according to Rachel Beatty Riedl, Mario Einaudi Center for Inter...