A DURHAM University student has won this year's undergraduate division of the British Association of American Studies (BAAS) Ambassador's Award.

The award, which includes a prize of £500, will be presented to Tim Herron, by the US Ambassador, in Cambridge, as part of a four-day 50th anniversary BAAS conference today.

The national competition is open to students of all subjects, who are invited to submit an essay exploring "any aspect of the American experience, from the perspective of history, literature, film, politics, or any other related or inter-related discipline".

Mr Herron, from Leeds, is an English studies student at Collingwood College.

His essay was called Forging an Identity in the New World: Charles Brockden Brown and the American Declaration of Literary Independence, and is based on his dissertation.

He said, "My essay looks at the history and politics of the early American republic and assesses the contribution of a young novelist named Charles Brockden Brown to the formation of an American cultural identity."

Mr Herron, who is in the third year of his degree, entered the competition after thinking of ways to raise some money over the Christmas holidays.

He said: "I was confident that it was one of the best essays I had written, but I had no idea what it might be up against.

"Winning came as an answer to a prayer."

Mr Herron has hopes to become a secondary school English teacher.