SAS Student Awards Competition 2026
mhowardthomas
I am pleased to announce that the Society for Anthropological Sciences (SAS) is sponsoring a Student Awards competition, offering a prize for the best student paper that meets rigorous scientific criteria in anthropology. In addition, two awards will be given for outstanding presentations. This year's SAS meeting will take place at the AAA meetings in St. Louis, MO, from November 18–22, 2026.
As part of this competition, SAS is proud to sponsor the bi-annual H. Russell Bernard Student Paper Prize, which awards $500 to the winner. Additionally, two Presentation Awards of $300 each will be given. These prizes recognize scholarly work by students that exemplifies the mission of SAS: to support empirical scientific research in any area of anthropology.
To be eligible, you must be an undergraduate or graduate student. You do not need to be an SAS member at the time of submission (although we do encourage you to join by adding us as a section on the AAA website!). You do not need to be presenting at the meetings, though we particularly encourage students who are presenting at the meetings to submit a paper. This is an important professional credential for your CV, as well as providing financial support for your scholarly work. SAS professional members: please encourage your students to submit!
For the Bernard Paper Prize, submit a full paper manuscript only (no posters or PowerPoints). Submissions for the paper prize will automatically be considered for the Presentation Awards as well. Submissions must be in Word or PDF format only and in English. We only accept single-authored contributions and favor analyses that are more scientific.
The SAS Student Awards Competition recognizes original scholarly contributions. Submissions that make substantive use of AI-generated or AI-assisted writing, analysis, interpretation, or argumentation are not eligible for consideration.
All submissions should be sent by email to Michael Thomas (mhowar...@gmail.com) no later than October 9, 2026. Awards will be evaluated by the Bernard Paper Prize Committee (Michael Thomas, Vera da Silva Sinha, and Caitlyn Placek).
Prizes for the Bernard Paper Prize and the two Presentation Awards will be announced at the SAS business meeting on November 19, (11:45 AM - 12:45 PM) at the St. Louis meetings. The winners will be notified in advance of the meeting in the hope that they can attend the business meeting.
Please send your questions and submissions to Michael Thomas (mhowar...@gmail.com).