Distinguished Thesis Award – UW Graduate School Skip to content

Distinguished Thesis Award

These awards recognize outstanding and exceptional scholarship and research at the master’s level. Nominations are due by 5 p.m. PST, May 1, 2025. Each recipient will receive an honorarium of $1,000. 

Call for Nominations 

The Graduate School is pleased to announce the 2025 Distinguished Thesis Awards competition in the following categories:  

  • Biological Sciences  
  • Humanities and Fine Arts 
  • Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Engineering 
  • Social Sciences 

These awards recognize outstanding and exceptional scholarship and research at the master’s level. Nominations are due by 5 p.m. PST, May 1, 2025.  

The date of degree award must fall within the period of July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, inclusive, for the nominee selected. 

Eligibility 

These awards recognize distinguished scholarly achievement at the master’s level. Nominations will be accepted in any discipline offering a master’s degree.  

The scholarly product eligible for this competition is a formal written thesis in English. If a nominating department offers both a thesis option and a project option, only the thesis is acceptable for consideration for this award.  

Formatting     

For all documents, fonts are to be no smaller than 11-point and margins no narrower than one inch.  We will strictly observe page-length limits and formatting guidelines.    

Nomination packet materials 

Step 1  

Please provide information about the nominee via this Microsoft Form.  

Step 2  

The following materials must be submitted electronically and combined into a single PDF (hard copy submissions will not be accepted), in this order:   

  1. A non-technical summary (NTS) addressing the purpose, methods, results of the research and its significance within the discipline of this thesis. An NTS is a concise document that provides a description of the process and its findings in a manner that is both appealing to read and easily understood by the general public. The NTS must not exceed 1,000-1,500 words. Please include the nominee’s name and master’s program on this page.  For more guidance, consult the Graduate School’s guide to “elevator speeches.”
  1. An abstract of the nominee’s research which should not exceed a maximum of 10 double-spaced pages. Appendices containing non-textual materials, such as charts or tables, can be included as optional, additional pages.  All pages should be numbered, and each should bear the name of the nominee.    
  1. Two nomination letters (not to exceed one page per letter): A letter from the department head or major professor and one additional faculty member. The letters should include information about the significance of the thesis, the contribution of the thesis to the program of the degree-granting unit, and the impact of the thesis on the knowledge base of the discipline.    
  1. A CV or resume from the student nominee (not to exceed five pages).

Note: Departments should be prepared to provide an electronic copy of the complete thesis. 

Step 3  

Degree-granting units (as classified by MyGrad) are limited to only one nomination per award category.  We will only accept nominations submitted by the department chair, Graduate Program Advisor or Graduate Program Coordinator. Please send nominations to graddean@uw.edu by 5 p.m. PST, May 1, 2025. This is a firm deadline; in fairness to all nominators, no exceptions or extensions will be granted.  No incomplete nominations will be considered.  There is a limit of one submission per award category per degree-granting unit (as classified by MyGrad).     

Please save your file in this format:  

Please save your file in this format:  

LASTNAMENOMINEE – Nominating Department – Thesis – [Category] – 2025.pdf   

Ex:  SONG – Astrobiology – Thesis – [Biological Sciences] – 2025.pdf    

Criteria for selection 

A Graduate School awards committee will select the award recipient based on four criteria:          

  • Originality of the study.  
  • Scope and significance of the study.  
  • Contribution to the discipline and/or profession.     
  • Overall quality of the summary and abstract of the thesis. 

Awards 

Each recipient will receive an honorarium of $1,000 and will be publicly recognized by the Graduate School.  

WAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Thesis Award 

If applicable, the Graduate School will submit a) one STEM discipline thesis; and b) one non-STEM discipline thesis (in the humanities, social sciences, education and/or business disciplines) to the Western Association of Graduate Schools for consideration for the WAGS/ProQuest Distinguished Thesis Awards. Note: If selected as an awardee in any of the above award categories, awardees must upload their theses or dissertations to the PQDT Global database to be eligible for selection. All nominating institutions must agree to this stipulation at the time the nomination is submitted. Those failing to agree to this requirement will be deemed ineligible for review.  

Address nomination materials to: 
Joy Williamson-Lott  
Dean of The Graduate School  

Questions?
Jerry Pangilinan, graddean@uw.edu  
Executive Assistant to the Dean of The Graduate School