E. Broadus Browne Research Awards

Table of Contents

• Award Description
• Nomination Procedures
• Recipients

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Rules and Regulations

Nomination Procedures

• Each department/institute will determine its criteria for its student award nominees.
• The department/institute head may nominate one candidate for each award.
• A cover letter for each nominee along with their written report should be emailed as a PDF document to the Associate Dean for Research.
• Dates of Entry: Nominations are due on or before the last Friday in January. Hard copies will not be accepted.

Awards

First-place award winners will receive travel funding up to $2,500 to a national meeting of the winner’s discipline, a cash award ($1,000 for the M.S. and $2,000 for the Ph.D.), plus the presentation of a certificate of achievement for outstanding research performance. The actual date of travel may occur after the conferral of the advanced degree.

Second-place winners will be awarded if there are at least seven nominations in a category. The M.S. second-place winner will receive a cash award of $500 and the Ph.D. second-place winner will receive a cash award of $1,000. Travel funding is not provided for second-place award winners.

All award winners will be recognized at the CAES Annual Awards Ceremony.

Award Eligibility

• The graduate student must be enrolled in the respective degree program within CAES at the time of the competition and the graduate student’s major advisor must have a GAES appointment.
• The work reported must be performed during the student’s M.S. or Ph.D. degree program at UGA and will be certified by his/her major professor or department head.
• Each department or official institute offering a graduate program in the college is limited to one M.S. and one Ph.D. nominee.

Student Requirements

Each student shall prepare a written report, not to exceed ten, single-sided 8½ x 11-inch standard pages (including text, footnotes, references, citations, tables, figures, and graphs). The top of the first page shall include the title of the report, the student’s name, and contact information (department, daytime phone number, and UGA email address). All text material shall be typed and double-spaced (including footnotes, references, and tables). Use 1-inch margins and 12-point Times Roman. As an aid, refer to the E. Broadus Browne Outstanding Graduate Student Award Guidelines (PDF). Failure to follow these guidelines will result in being disqualified.

The report shall include an abstract, a problem statement, the creative research approach, results, and conclusions. It should be written in a manner that is readily understood by a knowledgeable layperson. Participants will be evaluated on the appropriateness of research procedures, interpretation of results, conclusions drawn, editorial correctness (i.e., clarity and organization), quality of the science, originality of the research, and significance to the CAES mission.

Students shall also give an oral presentation limited to twenty minutes; ten minutes to present the research and ten minutes to answer questions. The oral presentation must effectively communicate the scientific merit and creativity of the research and utilize effective visual aids. The student will be evaluated on effective responses to questions from the audience. As with the written report, the oral presentation should be directed to a knowledgeable layperson.

Evaluation and Selection Process

All students will make an oral presentation to a review panel composed of CAES Graduate Affairs Committee members on the third (M.S. presentations) and fourth (Ph.D. presentations) Friday mornings of March. The CAES Graduate Committee Chair will judge both the M.S. and Ph.D. competitions, but the other committee members are only asked to judge either the M.S. or the Ph.D. competition, not both. If a Graduate Committee member is unable to judge presentations on either of those days, the Committee member will poll members of their home department to represent them.

Each review panel member shall evaluate and rank each written report before the oral presentation. A committee member shall abstain from voting or providing comments on a student from his/her department/institute or if he/she is a member of the student’s advisory committee.

After the oral presentation, the panel members shall evaluate and rank the student for the effectiveness of the oral presentation. Each panel member will then rank the students based on the combined written report and oral rankings. The review panel will pool their rankings and the Ph.D. and M.S. award winners will be determined jointly by the
panel members based on this combined ranking.

• E. Broadus Browne Outstanding Graduate Student Award Guidelines (PDF)

Timeline for Awards

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Award Recipients

Winners of the E. Broadus Browne Research Awards for Outstanding Graduate Student Research

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