Academic Awards & Events

For Graduate Students

Research Excellence Award

Awards are offered each semester and summer session to recognize students for outstanding research or creativity as seen in their theses and dissertations. These students are also expected to be academically superior and able to not only do research, but develop a well-written product.

Teaching Excellence Award

Awards are offered each semester to recognize and encourage outstanding achievement by graduate students in teaching.

The Karas Award for Outstanding Dissertations

The award is offered each spring semester to recognize a superior mathematical and physical sciences and engineering or social sciences dissertation.

The Zaffarano Prize for Graduate Student Research

The award is offered each spring semester: to recognize superior performance in publishable research by an ISU graduate student. Publishable research is defined as work written and accepted for publication in a national or international refereed journal. Both the quality and the number of publications produced while a student at ISU will be considered. Nominees must either be currently enrolled at ISU or have graduated in the 2 preceding terms.

3MT: Three Minute Thesis

Three Minute Thesis (3MT) celebrates the exciting research conducted by master’s or Ph.D. students around the world. Developed by The University of Queensland, the competition cultivates students’ academic, presentation, and research communication skills. Presenting in a 3MT competition increases students' capacity to explain their research in three minutes in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience. Competitors are allowed one PowerPoint slide, but no other resources or props.

For Postdoctoral Scholars

Awards related to postdoctoral scholars can be found here.

For Graduate Faculty

The Margaret Ellen White Graduate Faculty Award

The award is offered yearly to recognize superior performance in mentoring of graduate students by faculty. Major professors considered for this award enrich the student-professor relationship by their support and attention to detail which enables students to finish their work in a timely and scholarly manner. They are also expected to be supportive of their students beyond graduation. Students submit their nominations through their program's senator. The Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) evaluates all the nominations before forwarding the strongest to the Graduate College for further review. GPSS seeks nominations from graduate students by their November meeting date in fall semester.