Mary Blankenship (Economics, Chemistry, Brookings Mountain West, The Liny Institute, Honors), was awarded the 2020 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award during the fall 2020 Virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium, sponsored by the office of undergraduate research (OUR). This award recognizes one outstanding UNLV undergraduate student for excellence in research. In addition to her award, Blankenship also was selected to be a keynote speaker for the research symposium. An active undergraduate researcher, Blankenship is an undergraduate research assistant in professor Clemens Heske’s research group as well as a student researcher at Brookings Mountain West. During the 2020 calendar year, she published various public policy manuscripts, including co-authoring six Brookings Mountain West fact sheets and a pair of works assessing the spread of misinformation on Twitter, which has garnered much attention, including several media inquiries. She is double majoring in chemistry and economics, and recently completed the Brookings Public Policy Minor.