About

Each year, the Western Association of Graduate Schools (WAGS) partners with ProQuest to solicit nominees in four award categories. This prestigious regional competition is an important opportunity for your institution to showcase innovation and creativity by your graduate students. WAGS member institutions may only submit one nomination for each of the award categories. We encourage you to take the time to prepare a nomination for any of the four awards.

Categories

• Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award in STEM disciplines

  • This award recognizes distinguished scholarly achievement at the master’s level in STEM disciplines: biological sciences, mathematical sciences, physical sciences, life sciences and engineering. 
  • DistinguishedMastersThesisAward_STEM.pdf

• Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award in humanities, social sciences, education, and business disciplines

  • This award recognizes distinguished scholarly achievement at the master’s level the humanities, social sciences, education, and business disciplines.
  • DistinguishedMastersThesisAward_HumanitiesSocialSciencesEducationBusiness.pdf

• Distinguished Master’s Thesis and/or Final Master’s Capstone Project Award in the creative, visual and performing arts

  • This award recognizes distinguished scholarly and creative arts’ achievement at the master’s level in creative, visual, and performing arts disciplines.
  • DistinguishedMastersThesis_FinalMastersCapstoneProjAwdCreativeVisualPerformingArts.pdf

Award Details

The 2021-2022 recipient for each award will receive $1,000, a Certificate of Award, and travel expenses for the recipient to attend the WAGS Annual Conference and Awards luncheon to be held in Denver, Colorado on March 20-23, 2022.

Eligibility

• Nominees must have successfully defended and submitted the final copy of their thesis or dissertation towards the master’s or doctoral degree within the period of July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021
• Nominees must be from a WAGS member institution (UC San Diego is a member institution)
• Check specific award type for additional eligibility requirements

Evaluation 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 or dissertation

Nominations

• Graduate Departments/Programs can each submit up to two nominations for each award ( to be confirmed)
• All nominations must be submitted to the UC San Diego WAGS Applicant Intake Form for Graduate Students no later than August 25, 2021 at 5:00 p.m PST.
• The Graduate Division will review all submissions and select one application to nominate for each award category. (to be confirmed)
• Each WAGS member institution may submit only one nomination for each of the four award Categories.  
• Awards will be determined by WAGS in December 2021. 

Deadlines

The submission deadline for all nominations is August 25, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. PST.

Past Recipients

List coming soon!