Student Presentation Awards

The AABA has long recognized the important contributions made to our discipline by students. Their work reflects the promise and future of our field. Conferring awards for outstanding presentations delivered at the annual meeting celebrates innovative and rigorous research by young scholars. We urge all students eligible for an award to submit an application.

AABA Student Awards:

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Eligibility: To be eligible for a prize, a paper or poster must meet the following criteria:

[Please note that only abstracts submitted for the October 15 deadline are eligible. Abstracts submitted for other types of symposia (e.g. workshops or the undergraduate student research symposium) do not fall under the purview of this competition.]

  1. The applicant must be a student member (or special member who is a student) of the AABA at the time of abstract submission. 
  2. The applicant may not have previously won a prize for an AABA presentation.
  3. Individuals who have completed all terminal degree requirements before the abstract submission deadline are ineligible for a student prize. However, the applicant may have completed their degree requirements at the time of presentation.
  4. The paper and the project to be presented must be primarily the work of the applicant. The applicant must appear as first author.
  5. The abstract must be accepted for either a podium or poster presentation of the main AABA meeting (this excludes the COD Undergraduate Research Symposium).
  6. The applicant must personally make the presentation of the paper or poster.
  7. Students who wish to submit their presentations for Student Presentation Awards must indicate that by clicking a checkbox when they submit their abstracts by the abstract deadline of October 15, 2025. Upon abstract submission, applicants must also complete a brief supplemental form, providing details on their presentation.

You will need the following information to submit your application: 

  1. Your AABA member number;
  2. Details on your student status;
  3. Presentation title; 
  4. Full names of authors and institutions; 
  5. If the paper is multi-authored, state the contributions of each of the authors in terms of intellectual and/or methodological investment; 
  6. If two student co-authors contributed equally to the paper, and wish to be considered as co-principal investigators (co-PI’s) of the paper, indicate that this is the case. Should they win an award, they will each receive a check for half the amount of the total award. 

The deadline for submissions is October 15, 2025, the same as the AABA abstract submission deadline.

Review and Decisions: The Student Program Committee judges the visual/oral presentations given at the AABA meetings for quality of ideas and clarity of presentation. Prizes are awarded at the Closing and Awards Reception on the last evening (Saturday) of the Annual Meeting. The value of each award is $500.  Everyone who enters the competition will receive a short summary of the reviews of their presentation.

Further information may be obtained from the Student Programs Committee Chair Dr. Kevin Hatala. 

Past Awards and Awardees:

For decades, student awards for outstanding podium and poster presentations were conferred based on the type of presentation delivered by the student and in honor of past leaders of the AABA. In 2019, the Executive Committee of the AABA, based on discussion over several years and with input from standing committees and our membership, voted to change the names of student prizes to better reflect the core values and ethical responsibilities of our discipline, and to celebrate the increasing number of student contributions to the scientific content of our meetings.

We do not by this decision attempt to erase historical scholarship, the use of which we anticipate will continue with a critical eye, as we seek to build an inclusive and equitable science. Nor do we intend to erase or neglect to recognize the role individuals, and our association, played in the active production of racist science. Rather, we wish to celebrate student achievement that implicitly and explicitly reflects core values of the current and future AABA.

Hence, the AABA Executive Committee will bestow all AABA-supported awards as American Association of Biological Anthropologists Awards for Outstanding Student Presentation and the American Association of Biological Anthropologists Honorable Mentions for Student Presentation. Endowed awards, awards supported by journals and publishers, along with awards co-sponsored with other organizations, will remain unchanged in name. As always, all awards will be announced and celebrated during the closing reception of the AABA Annual Meeting.

For outstanding poster or podium presentations on bones or teeth:

For outstanding poster or podium presentations on primatology:

For outstanding poster or podium presentations on human or primate evolution:

For outstanding poster and podium presentations that are judged to best implement either traditional or state-of-the-art anatomical methodologies in innovative anthropological research (subject to co-funding by the American Association for Anatomy):

There are many more excellent student poster and podium presentations than we have named awards. As a result, a number of Honorable Mention Prizes are awarded each year to celebrate strong scholarship: