About

The prize, established in honor of Jean Fort, UC San Diego's long-time Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, is awarded annually to a Ph.D. recipient of unusual intellectual breadth whose doctoral research has met the highest standards of academic excellence and may make a significant contribution on an issue of humanitarian or public concern. This year's two winners will each receive a $1000 prize.

Eligibility

• To be eligible, a doctoral candidate must receive their Ph.D. degrees from UC San Diego during the Academic Year 2021-22: June 13, 2021, to June 11, 2022.
• Doctoral alumni who received their degree previously (before June 13, 2021) are ineligible.
• Doctoral candidates who intend to complete their degree later in Summer 2022 will be eligible for nomination during the next academic year.

Nomination Materials

• Graduate departments/programs can each submit one nomination by Wednesday, June 8th.

• Please submit: 1) the nominee's CV, 2) a letter of recommendation endorsed by the department chair/program director and 3) a 1-2 page summary of the candidate's dissertation.

• Please submit all nomination materials as one single .pdf file via Google Form.

If you have any questions please send an email to gradadvisor@ucsd.edu which will create a ticket in the Services & Support portal.

Deadlines

Wednesday, June 8, 2022

Recipients

2021-2022 Recipients

• Channing Prend – a Spring 2022 Ph.D. graduate from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Dr. Prend's dissertation is entitled: Physical Controls on Southern Ocean Biogeochemistry
• Maxie Gluckman – a Winter 2021 Ph.D. graduate in Education Studies, Dr. Gluckman's dissertation is entitled: Education on the Move: Informal Learnings of Honduran Child Migrants In-Transit

2020-2021 Recipient 

• Qiguang He – a Winter 2021 Ph.D. graduate in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Dr. He’s dissertation is entitled: Bioinspired Liquid Crystal Elastomer (LCE) Based Soft Actuators with Multimodal Actuation

2019-2020 Recipients

• Cameron Sells – a Spring 2020 Ph.D. graduate in the Department of Political Science, Dr. Sells’ dissertation is entitled: The Life of the Party: Grassroots Activists and Mass Partisanship in Latin America
• Michael Berman – a Summer 2019 Ph.D. graduate in the Department of Anthropology, Dr. Berman’s dissertation is entitled: Hearth of a Heartless World: Compassion, Alienation, and the Formation of Liberal Secularism in Contemporary Japan