SAGE Emerging Scholar Award

SPSP, in collaboration with SAGE Publications, is pleased to award the SAGE Emerging Scholar Award. This award recognizes outstanding achievements by early career PhD scholars (between 0 and 3 years Post-PhD, October of the academic year you are nominated or later) in social and personality psychology, including contributions to teaching, research, or service to the field.

Awardees will receive free Annual Convention registration along with $2000 to be used at their discretion for research, study, and/or conference travel-related expenses.

Research excellence, advancement, and leadership, demonstrated through e.g.,

• highly influential work that clearly demonstrates adding to the field (through citations, paper awards, or other metrics);
• developing important theories/ideas;
• collecting valuable data that advance the field;
• contribution to methodological innovation (e.g., analysis tool, statistical approach) or improvement (e.g., analysis tool, statistical approach, recruitment technique);
• research making impacts on society (e.g., informing policy, improving practices that improve individual and social wellness);
• ability to effectively lead and collaborate with diverse research team(s) (multi-site, international, and/or multidisciplinary, etc.);
• highly-cited and impactful papers independent from the major program of work of PhD supervisor;
• efforts in research dissemination and securing funding that suggests research productivity (e.g., citations, submitting grants, paper awards, or other metrics); and/or
• editorial board involvement

Teaching/mentoring excellence, advancement, and leadership, demonstrated through e.g.,

• creation or spearheading of new cross-disciplinary or cross-institutional teaching efforts (e.g., specific pedagogical techniques, development of innovative resources shared with others);
• creating new courses and developing/using new methods to improve teaching quality;
• recognized success in classroom teaching effectiveness;
• pedagogical reach through inclusive and developmental teaching practices (e.g., diverse class examples, and engaging teaching techniques);
• both of number of students being mentored and the impact of quality practices to support a diverse body of students to succeed;
• conducting research on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL);
• contributing to SPSP efforts to support the development of teachers (e.g., Teaching of Psychology pre-conference presentations, professional development sessions or workshops on teaching; and/or
• sharing best practices with the broader community (creating open access to new teaching resources or methods, giving talks on improving teaching practices, mentoring others in teaching, etc.)

Service excellence, advancement, and leadership, demonstrated through e.g.,

• involvement/leadership in efforts to build and support collaborative research networks (e.g. open science work);
• excellence in creating and supporting diversity and inclusion initiatives (e.g., BLaSPR);
• start-up or entrepreneurial work that provides services that improve the field;
• involvement in SPSP efforts (e.g. chairing SPSP committees and task forces);
• efforts internally at the home institution (e.g., departmental or university committees); and/or
• efforts externally, such as working with non-profits, government, community partners, and other agencies (e.g., scientific advocacy, policy transformation)

To be eligible for the SAGE Emerging Scholar Award, candidates must have earned their PhD and be between 0 and 3 years post-PhD by October of the academic year in which they are nominated (PhD awarded during or after October 2020). That is, you are nominated in October 2023 for an award due in April 2024. Previous winners of the SAGE Emerging Scholar Award and/or the SAGE Young Scholar Award are not eligible to win again.

All candidates should have demonstrated exceptional individual or collaborative achievements in social and/or personality psychology (broadly defined), that are commensurate with their career stage. Candidates can make a case in one or more categories; research, teaching, and/or service. For each category chosen, a 500-word maximum essay is required. An applicant will only be selected based on one category (e.g., being selected for the award based on teaching precludes you from also being selected based on research). As each category (research/teaching/service) will be evaluated separately, applicants will not be given a “boost” for making a case on the basis of multiple categories (nor will they be disadvantaged for submitting on the basis of only one category). We encourage applicants to submit cases for as many categories as they feel they can provide a strong case for (this could be a single category, two categories, or all three categories). 

For each category, applicants will be evaluated on the basis of their statement(s) as well as their CV. To facilitate review, we ask that applicants submit a CV that (1) includes their educational background and academic positions (2) and organizes all other information under the clear headers of Research (e.g., publications, presentations, research funding, research-relevant awards), Teaching (e.g., courses taught, teaching-relevant publications, course evaluations, teaching-relevant awards), and Service (e.g., service positions, service-relevant awards, public outreach). Please include all three sections, even if you are submitting a case for only one or two categories.

Applicants will also be invited to supply information (in an additional, optional 150-word statement) on the context of their achievement (e.g., institutional resources, start-up budget, geographic location, teaching load, parental/medical leave).

Following an evaluation of the 2023 awards, only self-nominations will be allowed for this award. That is, you can only nominate yourself—not another person—for this award. The reason for this change is that self-nominations tended to be more detailed and specific compared to other nominations, and those who self-nominated were more likely to win the award in 2023. To level the playing field, we have decided to remove the other-nomination option. If you would have nominated someone, we strongly encourage you to reach out to them to encourage them to apply for this award.

Submissions will be accepted from February 8 – April 20, 2024, 11:59 PM ET.

Applications closed

• Only self-nominations are allowed. 
• A 500-word essay is required for each category chosen (research, teaching, and/or service).
• Optional 150-word statement on the context of the achievements.
• CV (no page limit) that contains clear headings of Research, Teaching, and Service.

2022

• Olivia E. Atherton, Northwestern University
• Kimberly Chaney, University of Connecticut
• Joshua Conrad Jackson, Northwestern University
• M. Rosie Shrout, Purdue University
• Beyza Tepe, MEF University
• Linda Zou, University of Maryland, College Park

2021

• William J. Brady, Yale University
• Tyler James Jimenez, University of Washington
• Jessie Sun, University of Pennsylvania
• Sarah Ward, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

For more information, please contact [email protected]