Dean’s Distinguished Dissertation Award
The Dean’s Distinguished Dissertation Award recognizes the scholarly contributions of a dissertation project. The recipient of the 2027 award will be recognized at the Arts & Humanities Division Spring Convocation on TBD.
Each department may submit one nominee to be considered for the award. The dossier is to be submitted to the Dean of Students Office at ahd-dos@uchicago.edu no later than TBD (will update for 2027).
2027 nominees must have been a PhD student in a home department within the AHD and have a graduation date in one of the four quarters between Spring quarter 2026 and Winter quarter 2027.
- Originality
- Innovation
- Excellence in writing
- Scholarly excellence
- Methodological sophistication
- Significant contribution to the field
- Time-to-degree: Preference for the award will be given to nominees who graduated within 7 years from matriculation.
The 2027 awardee will receive a cash award of $1500, a certificate, and will be recognized at the Arts & Humanities Division Spring Convocation on TBD at Rockefeller Chapel.
Dossier must be submitted as one pdf file to ahd-dos@uchicago.edu by TBD and include the following:
- A one-page letter of nomination from the department chair that:
- provides departmental endorsement;
- comments on academic circumstances relating to the time-to-degree.
- A one-page letter of support from the dissertation committee chair that:
- explains the impact of this thesis work on the field;
- assesses the nominee’s scholarly creativity in the thesis work;
- addresses any technical or methodological difficulties that were surmounted;
- cites external recognition in the field, such as grant awards or scholarly presentations.
- A copy of the abstract that was submitted for the dissertation defense.
- A copy of the thesis.
The committee for the Dean's Distinguished Dissertation Award will review all nominations. The committee includes the Deputy Dean(s) of the Division of the Arts & Humanities and the Dean of Students of the Division of the Arts & Humanities.
2026 - Tobias Scheunchen (MES)
2025 - Laurenz Ramsauer (PHL)
2024 - Laura Colaneri (RLL)
2023 – Alexander Murphy (EALC)
2022 - Katerina Korola (CMS/ARTH)
2021 - Samuel Lasman (CMPLT)
2020 - Lester (Zhuqing) Hu (MUSI)