Thesis Awards

Every year, MAPSS students earn awards for outstanding theses.

The Earl S. and Esther Johnson Prize is awarded annually to the MAPSS student whose MA paper best combines high scholarly achievement with concern for humanistic aspirations and the practical applications of the Social Sciences. The prize was established in the memory of the long-time Director of the Program.

Students who earn an A on their theses from both their primary reader and preceptor are automatically considered for the prize.

2024 | Katherine Shah, “Traversing the City: Examining the Impacts of Extended Commute on Student Wellbeing & High School Experience in Chicago.”

2023 | Keshav Kundassery, “Biopolitical Revival: Love, Care, and Subject (Re)formation Inside the Chicago Recovery Alliance.”

2023 | Mike (Youchuan) Ma, “The Effects of Bilingual Experience on the Development of Executive Function in Early Childhood.”

2022 | Daniel Muras, “A Pandemic of Exclusion: The Revanchist Overtones, Quest for Peircean Firstness, and Nascent Dialogisms in the Wake of the Covid-19 Pandemic.”

The Raymond D. Fogelson Prize annually honors the best MAPSS thesis in the ethnological and historical sciences. The prize was established in honor of Raymond D. Fogelson, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and the College and longtime stalwart of MAPSS governance and program development.

Students who earn an A on their theses from both their primary reader and preceptor are automatically considered for the prize.

2024 | Bek Erl, “Develop, Heal, Sustain, Decolonize: Indigeneity and Environmental Justice.”

2024 Honorable Mention | Cristian Quiroga, “Co-opting the Countryside: Comparing Campesino-Government Relations in Postrevolutionary Mexico and Bolivia.”

2023 | Annika Hirkme, “Building in Process: Environmental Design in Montana.”

2022 | Grace Richards, “Reevaluating Lebensraum: Friedrich Ratzel, Darwinism, and the Argument for Imperialist Continuity, 1871-1945.”

2022 Honorable Mention | C. A. R. Hawkins Lewis, "Pishtacos in Amazonia: Unsettling Ethnology, Biopoliticized Ecologies, and Indigenous Extractivism in the Ucayali River Region."

2024 | Yongyin (Joanne) Liang, “From the Ashes: Urban Reconstruction and Land Values after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871” 

2024 | Parth Vaitha, “Conditional Covariance of Risky and Risk-Free Assets”

This award, given by the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility at the Harris School of Public Policy, recognizes exceptional scholarly achievement of graduate students at the University of Chicago who conducted empirical social science research on inequality in cross-cultural or U.S. contexts.  

In 2024, two MAPSS students were the recipients of the Stone Center Thesis Award:

Maggie Rivera, “Sanctuary in the Schoolyard? The Case of the Wadsworth Migrant Shelter”

Joseph Spada, “Employment Effects of Minimum Wage Increases: Evidence from New Jersey”