This prize is given for a graduate student paper that employs spatial analysis/thinking or GIS. The next submission deadline would be sometime in mid-March 2025. Only complete papers will be judged, but it's fine for manuscripts to be in draft format (or even recently published). The winner will receive a prize of $500 and will be invited to present their paper as part of the S4 speaker series in the spring semester. Many of you are writing papers - why not submit them? To be considered for the prize, simply email Kevin Mwenda a pdf of your paper by the deadline. Papers co-authored with other current students are fine, but not with faculty.

Current Winners:

2024

Winner: Jonathan Tollefson​, Sociology, "Racial environmental inequality in US cities, 1880-1930" 

Second Place: Yu-Cheng (Richard) Shih, History, "Reeds, Snails, and Parasites: Bilharzia Disease and Wetland Ecology in China’s Yangzi Delta from the 1870s to 1949" 

Third Place: Sertaç Sen, Anthropology, "Something Wicked This Way Comes: Infrastructural Ideology and the Ambivalence of Infrastructures in Turkey from the Late Ottoman Period to the Cold War"

Honorable Mention: Jonathon Acosta, Sociology, "New Immigrants in Local Politics"

Previous Winners:

2023

None.

2022

Winner: Aarushi Kalra, Economics, "A `Ghetto' of One's Own: Communal Violence, Residential Segregation and Group Education Outcomes in India" [Paper]

Second Place: Jose Belmar & Diego Gentile Passaro, Economics, "Bimodal Transport Infrastructure and Regional Development: Evidence from Argentina, 1960 - 1991" [Paper]

Third Place: Santiago Hermo, Diego Gentile Passaro & Gabriele Borg, Economics, "Minimum Wage as a Place-based Policy: Evidence from US Housing Rental Markets"

Honorable Mention: Geetika Nagpal & Alessandro Sovera, Economics, "Let the Water Flow: The Impact of Electrification on Agriculture"

2021

Winner: Juan Pablo Uribe, Economics, "The Effect of Location Based Subsidies on the Housing Market"

Second Place: Chinyere Agbai, Sociology, "Wealth Begins at Home: The GI Bill of 1944 and the Making of the Racial Wealth Gap in Homeownership and Home Value"

2020

Winner: Miriam Rothenberg, Archeology and the Ancient World, "Monstrous Giants of Infamous Repute: Wind-powered Sugar Mills as Constructions of Control in Colonial Montserrat"

Second Place: Shunsuke Tsuda, Economics, "Economics of Subsistence in Africa: Land Endowments, Population Density, and Agglomeration Forces for Market Transactions"

Third Place: Aaron Weisbrod, Economics, "Housing Booms and Urban Frictions: The Impact of the 1917 Halifax Explosion on Local Property Values"

2019

Winner: Thomas Marlow, Sociology, "Environmental Justice in the Post-Industrial Landscape"

Second Place: Jamie Hansen-Lewis, Economics, "Does Air Pollution Lower Productivity? Evidence from Manufacturing in India"

2018

Winner: Jorge Pérez Pérez, Economics, "City Minimum Wages"

2017

None.

2016

Winner: Benjamin Bellman, Sociology, "Slicing the Pie: Occupational and Residential Stratification in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia"

Second Place: Heitor Pellegrina, Economics, "Agricultural Productivity and the Spatial Economy: Theory and Evidence from Brazil"

2015

Winner: Michelle Marcus, Economics, "On the Road to Recovery: Gasoline Content Regulations and Child Health"

Second Place: David Glick, Economics, "Groundwater Quality and Crop Growth: Evidence from North-Central India"

Third Place: Marcia Pescador Jimenez, Public Health, "Proximity to Green Areas Improves Self-Rated Health Among Older Puerto Rican Adults in Massachusetts"

2014

Winner: David Glancy, Economics, "Measuring Spatial Banking Competition"

Second Place: Alexei Abrahams, Economics, "Mobility and Inequality: Evidence from the Second Intifada"

Third Place: Martin Fiszbein, Economics, "Agricultural Diversication and Economic Development: Evidence from U.S. History"

Honorable Mention: Patrick Mayne, Sociology, "Neighborhood Change, Social Capital, and Health: The Case of Public Housing Demolitions in Chicago"

Honorable Mention: Ida Sahlu, Public Health, "Distance to Snail Site as a Potential Predictor of the Spatial Heterogeneity of Schistosomiasis Infection"

2013

Winner: Elena Esposito, Brown University and the University of Bologna, "The Geography of Disease Immunities and the African Slave Trade"

Honorable Mention: Sean Dinces, American Studies, "A Bad Case of ‘Peanut Envy’: Concessions Markets and Monopoly Power at Chicago’s United Center"