Alumni Association Dissertation Award

NOMINATION DEADLINE: OCTOBER 15, 2009
General Information

The Alumni Association Dissertation Award provides funding and recognition to outstanding full-time doctoral students who have passed their comprehensive exams and have received approval of the dissertation topic, or to M.F.A. students in their final year. This award is considered to be among the most prestigious available to Penn State graduate students and recognizes outstanding achievement in scholarship and professional accomplishment.

Eligibility

To be considered for this award, a graduate studentmust meet the following criteria:

  • completed all course work and language requirements;
  • completed the comprehensive examination;
  • received approval of the dissertation topic;
  • be registered for subj. 601 or nine credits (E.Ed. or M.F.A. students);
  • be within their final year of study.
Nomination Process

An electronic copy of the nomination packet in PDF form must be sent to the CLA Graduate Office contact, Brandy Bower (bvb2@psu.edu) by October 15, 2009.

ONE nomination per program may be submitted by the program chair to the college's associate dean for graduate studies. Each college associate dean for graduate studies will review the nominations and select three to be forwarded to the Office of graduate Fellowships and Awards Administration.

Nominations should include the following:

  • a completed cover sheet;
  • a descriptive summary of the dissertation topic and significant aspects of the work suitable for an audience of educated lay people (maximum two pages);
  • a reference letter from the dissertation adviser evaluating the merits of the proposed project and discussing the contributions the student has made to his/her field, i.e., presentations, papers, awards, or other evidence of superiority, and a confirming statement that the student is within their final year of study;
  • an unofficial transcript of graduate work taken at Penn State;
  • a concise biographical sketch including information such as memberships in professional associations, awards, special professional recognition, etc. (maximum two pages)

A minimum of two awards of $5,000 will be made for each of the following categories: Fine Arts and Humanities; Social Sciences - Applied and Basic; Physical and Computational Sciences - Applied and basic; Life and Health Sciences; and Engineering. In the event that qualified nominations are not received in a given category, those fellowships may be awarded in another category at the discretion of the dean of the Graduate School.

Past Winners
Year Recipient Department
2009 Jessica Suzanne Hayes-Conroy Women's Studies
  Ashley Marshall English
  Sonja Siennick Sociology
2008 Susan Bobb Psychology
  Nathan Paul Devir Comparative Literature
2007 Jennifer Biedendorf Communciation Arts and Science
  David Egan Political Science
  Ben Feldmeyer Sociology
2006 Timothy Arner English
  Amanda Dawson Psychology
  Adetty R. Pirez de Miles Women's Studies
2005 Valentina Cesco History
  Holly Dunsworth Anthropology