This award recognizes an outstanding graduate paper in the School of Social Sciences(open to Social Sciences graduate students only). Papers should represent the student's own original research; they cannot be co-authored with fellow students or faculty. Past prize-winning papers were exceptionally well-written, well-organized, properly documented and theoretically and conceptually sound. The writer must demonstrate knowledge of the current, relevant literature in the field of the research.

Recipients

• 2014: Dana Moss (Sociology) "Repression, Response, and Contained Escalation Under 'Leberalized' Authoritarianism in Jordan."
• 2013: Mark Berlin (Political Science) "Why (not) Arrest? Third-Party State (Non)compliance with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda" and Benjamin Feintzeig (Logic and Philosophy of Science) "Hidden Variables and Commutativity in Quantum Mechanics"
• 2012: Cailin O’Connor (Logic & Philosophy of Science) “The Evolution of Vagueness” and Beijie Tang (Political Science) “Path to Internationalization: The Political Logic of Chinese Sovereignty”
• 2011: Zack Almquist (Sociology)
• 2010: Fatima Z. Rahman (Political Science) and Jonathan Cook (Honorable Mention)
• 2009: Elliot Wagner
• 2008: James D. Bachmeier
• 2007: Kathy H. Rim