2023 Yuchen Yang, "The Art Worlds of Gender Performance: Cosplay, Embodiment, and the Collective Accomplishment of Gender," The Journal of Chinese Sociology, 9(9).

2022 Robert Scott (UC-Boulder), “A Social Phenomenon of Risk Perception: Saskatchewan Firefighters on the Yarnell Hill Fire Fatalities.”

Honorable Mention: Ken Hanson (Oregon) for “The Silicone Self: Examining Sexual Selfhood and Stigma within the Love and Sex Doll Community,” published in Symbolic Interaction

2020 Fangheyue Amber Ma, University of Southern Florida, for the paper: “’You Are First a Chinese Citizen, Then a Consumer’: Presenting and Balancing Identities Online as Chinese International Tourists”

2019 Max Papadantonakis (CUNY) for the paper: Cultural Othering: Interpersonal Foundations of Nationalist Ethnic Conflict in a Greek Street Market.

2018 Stephanie Peña-Alves (Rutgers University) for her paper “Say it with Doors: Object-Mediated Communication in Everyday Life”.

2017 Andrea Laurent-Simpson (Texas Women’s University Denton) for her paper “Considering Alternate Sources of Role Identity: Childless Parents and Their Animal “Kids”

2016  Sherri Sasnett-Martichuski (Sociology, University of Colorado, Boulder) for her paper “The Transgender Experience: In Search of an Authentic Self”.

2015 Hyeyoung Kwon (Indiana University) for the paper: Intersectionality in Interaction: Immigrant Youth Doing American from an Outsider-Within Position.

2014 Hannah Wohl, Northwestern University, for her paper: Modeling Judgment: Interacting in an Erotic Arts Club

2013 Amanda Gengler, Brandeis University, for her paper:  Keep Your Hope, Keep Your Faith: Hope Work and Emotional Threat Management among Families of Seriously Ill Children

Honourable Mention:  Gareth M. Thomas, Cardiff University, for this paper, Cooling the Mother Out: Revisiting and Revising Goffman’s Account.

2012 Jason Sumerau and Alex I. Thompson

2011 Lisa-Jo Van den Scott

2010 Marc Eaton

2009 Raymond Garrett-Peters

2008 Eric C. Bonds

2007 Ken Kolb

2006 Margaret Leaf

Honorable mention: Annie Wagganer

2005 Elly Teman and Avi Shoshana

2004 Amy Leisenring

2003 Rob Gardner

2002 Hilary Smith

2001 Adina L. Nack

Honorable mentions: 

Scott R. Harris

Tony Puddephatt

2000 Alice Fothergill

1999 Penny Phillips

1998 Jennifer Lois

1997 Leslie Irvine and Joanna Gregson

1996 Daphne Holden

1995 Jessica Fields

Honorable mention:

Stefan Timmermans

1994 Joseph Hopper

1993 Carol Rambo-Ronai

1992 Lori Ducharme

1991 Jody Miller

1990 J. David Brown

1989 Kent Sandstrom

1988 Martha Copp

1987 Elisabeth Schillinger

1986 Judi Miller

1985 Steve Worden

1983 William L. Tam

1981 Spencer Cahill, Wendy Espeland, and Bill Gronfein

1980 Diane Bjorkland and Monica Hardesty

1979 Claire Fraser Holt

1978 David Unruh