Section Awards – SECTION ON ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY

Below are the descriptions and procedures for our Section Awards. If you have questions or would like to inquire about submission deadlines, please contact the chair of the respective award.

Environmental Sociology Student Paper Award

Deadline: April 1, 2026

Contact: Caleb Scoville (chair), caleb.scoville@tufts.edu

The purpose of this award is to recognize an outstanding paper written by a graduate student or group of graduate students. All members of the Section and the ASA are encouraged to submit nominations; self-nominations are also welcome. In addition to recognition, recipients will receive a modest monetary award. Papers do not have to be published or accepted for publication to be considered. They must have been submitted to the ASA annual meeting and/or to a journal by a graduate student(s) at the time the nomination is made. Published papers must have been accepted for publication or published between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2025 and while the author(s) was still a graduate student in order to be considered. Papers co-authored with faculty are ineligible. To nominate a paper, please send a PDF copy of the paper along with a nomination letter that includes information about the paper’s status by April 1, 2026 to Policy & Research Committee Chair, Caleb Scoville (caleb.scoville@tufts.edu). Please include “Environmental Sociology Student Paper Award” in the subject line.

Environmental Sociology Outstanding Publication Award

Deadline: February 1, 2026

Contact: Caleb Scoville (chair), caleb.scoville@tufts.edu

This is given for publications of special noteworthiness in the field of environmental sociology. It is given in alternate years for either (a) a book in even years or (b) a single article in odd years. This year, the committee will consider books published within the period January 1, 2024, through December 31, 2025. To nominate a book, please email a nomination letter by February 1, 2026 to Policy & Research Committee Chair, Caleb Scoville (caleb.scoville@tufts.edu), who will provide the names and addresses to which hard or digital copies of the book should be sent no later than February 15, 2026. Please include “Environmental Sociology Outstanding Publication Award” in the subject line.

Distinguished Contribution Award

Deadline: April 1, 2026

Contact: Raoul Lievanos (chair), raoull@uoregon.edu

This award is given annually to recognize individuals for outstanding service, innovation, or publication in environmental sociology. It is intended to be an expression of appreciation, awarded when an individual is deemed extraordinarily meritorious by the Section. All members of the Section are encouraged to submit nominations; self-nominations are welcome. Nominations for this award must be received by April 1, 2026. To nominate an individual for this award, please send a letter of nomination describing the nominee’s contribution to environmental sociology, accompanied by a copy of the nominee’s CV, to the chair of the award committee, Section Past-Chair, Raoul Lievanos (raoull@uoregon.edu). Please include “Distinguished Contribution Award Nomination” in the subject line.

The Environmental Sociology Teaching and Mentorship Award (Bi-yearly)

Deadline: March 1, 2026

Contact: Lourdes Vera (chair), lavera@buffalo.edu

This award, given in even years, honors faculty members who demonstrate a notable dedication to teaching and mentorship through: innovative pedagogy; actionable attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion; robust community-engaged approaches; and/or other elements of excellence in the teaching and mentoring of undergraduate and/or graduate students in environmental sociology. All members of the Section are encouraged to submit nominations; self-nominations are welcome. The award is open to faculty of any rank, including tenure-track or contingent positions. Nomination packages should be combined into a single PDF and submitted by email to Lourdes Vera (lavera@buffalo.edu) by March 1, 2026. Nomination packages should include: (1) Letter of Nomination, not to exceed 2 pages; (2) personal statement on teaching and mentorship philosophy, not to exceed 3 pages; (3) CV with relevant components highlighted, such as teaching/mentoring awards and activities, publications or presentations co‐authored with students (underline the names of student co‐authors and indicate whether undergraduate, master’s, or doctoral student). Please include “Environmental Sociology Teaching and Mentorship Award” in the subject line.

Nominations will be vetted within two weeks, and a selection of candidates will be asked to submit a comprehensive packet of additional materials by April 15, 2026 including: (1) a maximum of 5 letters of student support (any mix of present or past students); (2) a maximum of 2 additional letters of support from colleagues who are not former students; (3) a maximum of 3 syllabi or other relevant material from the past 5 years; and (4) excerpts or summaries of teaching evaluations as desired.

Robert Boguslaw Award for Technology and Humanism (Bi-yearly)

The Robert Boguslaw Award for Technology and Humanism, given in odd years, honors a doctoral student or other young investigator who has obtained a Ph.D. in the past five years. The purpose of the award is to recognize work that investigates the relationship between technology and humanism or otherwise proposes innovative solutions to emerging social issues associated with technology. We will accept nominations for this award at a later time for the 2027 award cycle.

The Environmental Sociology Practice and Outreach Award (Bi-yearly)

This award, given in odd years, honors faculty scholar-activists who demonstrate outstanding practice and outreach contributions that advance equity in the context of socio-environmental relations. We will accept nominations for this award at a later time for the 2027 award cycle.

Previous Award Winners

Environmental Sociology Student Paper Award (Previously the Marvin E. Olsen Student Paper Award)

2025 Anupriya Pandey, University at Buffalo, SUNY, “Toward a Critical Caste Ecology: How Does Agrochemical Harm Interact with Caste Relations in Rural India?”
2025 Honorable Mention:Joyce Ho, University of Michigan, “The Limits of Indemnity: Compensating Loss After Climate Disaster.”
2025 Livio Silva-Müller, Geneva Graduate Institute, “Pathways of the Environmental State: Global Climate Politics in the Amazon Rainforest.”
2024 Honorable Mention: Jonathan Tollefson, Brown University, “Racial environmental inequality in US cities, 1880-1930.”
2024: Ankit Bhardwaj, New York University, “The Soils of Black Folk: W.E.B. Du Bois’s Theories of Environmental Racialization,” Sociological Theory 41(2), 105-128. 2023.
2023 Adrienne Brown. “’Driving Down a Road and Not Knowing Where You’re At’: Navigating the Loss of Physical and Social Infrastructure After the Camp Fire.” Rural Sociology 87(1): 3-25.
2023 (Honorable Mention) Liudmila Listrovaya, for the unpublished paper “’Here’ Versus ‘There’: Perceptions of Deforestation and Ecological Scapegoating Among Loggers in Northwestern Russia.
2022 Kristen Vinyeta (University of Oregon), “Under the Guise of Science: How the US Forest Service Deployed Settler Colonial and Racist Logics to Advance an Unsubstantiated Fire Suppression Agenda” (co-winner)
2022 Daniel Driscoll (University of California, San Diego), “Populism and Carbon Tax Justice: The Yellow Vest Movement in France” (co-winner)
2021 Angela Serrano Zapata (University of Wisconsin-Madison), “Materializing Inequality: The Production of Environmental Risks for Small-Scale Farmers in the Palm Oil Industry” (co-winner)
2021 Malcolm Araos (New York University), “Democracy Underwater: Public Participation and Technical Expertise in Climate Infrastructure Planning in New York City” (co-winner)
2020 Andrew McCumber (University of California, Santa Barbara), “Killing for Life: Species Eradication and the Ecology of Meaning in Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands”
2020 (Honorable Mention) Danielle Falzon (Brown University), “Legitimately Paralyzed: How Fairness and Flexibility Have Doomed the UN Climate Negotiations from the Start”
2019 Caleb Scoville (University of California, Berkley) “Constructing Environmental Compliance: Law, Science, and the Morality of Endangered Species Conservation in California’s Delta”
2019 (Honorable Mention) Maricarmen Hernández (University of Texas at Austin) “To Build a Home: Everyday Placemaking in a Toxic Neighborhood”
2018 Erik Kojola (University of Minnesota), “Who Speaks for the Place? Identity and Nostalgia in Conflicts over Resource Extraction and Conversation”
2018 (Honorable Mention) Camila H. Alvarez and Kathryn G. Norton-Smith (University of Oregon), “Environmental Inequality in Latino Destinations: Estimated Cancer Risk from Air Toxics in Latino Traditional and Emerging Destinations”
2017 Amanda McMillan Lequieu, “We Made the Choice to Stick it Out’: Negotiating a Stable Home in the Rural, American Rust Belt,” Journal of Rural Studies 53:202-213. 2017.
2016 Kevin T. Smiley, “Race and Air Quality in Urban America: How Metropolitan Contexts Condition Environmental Risk”
2015 Rebecca Elliott (University of California-Berkeley): “Calculative Ambivalence: Climate Change and the Mapping and Pricing of Flood Risk in New York City.”
2014 Asad L. Asad (Harvard University): “Context of Reception, Post-Disaster Migration, and Socioeconomic Mobility.”
2013 Matthew Clement (University of Oregon): “Urbanization of the Countryside: A Sociological Study of Cropland Lost to Development in the United States, 2001-2006.”
2012 Justin Farrell (University of Notre Dame): “Moral Outpouring: The BP Oil Spill and Americans’ Responses to Large-Scale Disasters.”
2011 (co-winner) Maria Akchurin (University of Chicago): “Constructing the Rights of Nature: Environmentalism, Indigenous Politics, and Legal Mobilization in Ecuador, 1970-2008.”
2011 (co-winner) Cristina Lucier (Boston College): “Obstacles to Precaution and Equity in Global Environmental Governance: Applications to the Basel Convention.”
2010 KuoRay Mao (University of Kansas): “The Neoliberal Conundrum: The Western Development Policies, Migration, and Environmental Degradation in Northwestern China.”
2009 Stefano Long (University of Oregon): “Mediterranean Rift: The Metabolic Rift in the Sicilian Bluefin Tuna Fishery.”
2008 Eric Bonds: “The Knowledge-Shaping Process: Elite Mobilization and Environmental Policy.”
2007 Norah Mackendrick: “Contaminants, the Human Body and the Framing of Risk: A Study of Canadian News Coverage, 1986-2006.”
2006 Jessica Crowe: “Community Economic Development Strategies in Rural Washington: Toward a Synthesis of Natural and Social Capital.”; Honorable mention: Lisa Asplen: “Decentering Environmental Sociology: Lessons from Post-Humanist Science and Technology Studies.”
2004 Rebecca Gasior-Altman
2003 Kari Marie Norgaard
2002 Andrew Jorgenson
2001 Michael Mascarenhas
2000 Allison Shore
1999 Reid Helford
1998 Michael J. Handel
1997 Zsuzsa Gille
1996 Beth Caniglia
1994 Karen O’Neill
1993 Adam Weinberg
1992 Hal Aronson

Environmental Sociology Outstanding Publication Award (Previously the Allan Schnaiberg Outstanding Publication Award)

2025 Pierce Greenberg, Clemson University, and Robert Todd Perdue, Virginia Tech, “Prisons and Pollution: A Nationwide Analysis of Carceral Environmental Inequality.” Social Problems, 72(2), 783–801. 2025.
2025 Honorable Mention: Andrew K. Jorgenson, Brett Clark, Ryan P. Thombs, Jeffrey Kentor, Jennifer Givens, Xiaorui Huang, Hassan El Tinay, Daniel Auerbach, and Matthew C. Mahutga, “Guns Versus Climate: How Militarization Amplifies the Effect of Economic Growth on Carbon Emissions.” American Sociological Review, 88(3), 418-453. 2023.
2025 Honorable Mention: Rachel Wetts, Brown University, “Money and Meaning in the Climate Change Debate: Organizational Power, Cultural Resonance, and the Shaping of American Media Discourse.” American Journal of Sociology, 129(2), 384-438. 2023.
2024 Daniel Jaffee, Portland State University, Unbottled: The Fight against Plastic Water and for Water Justice. University of California Press. 2023.
2024 Honorable Mention: Erik Kojola, Texas Christian University, Mining the Heartland: Nature, Place, and Populism on the Iron Range, New York University Press. 2023.
2024 Honorable Mention: Summer Gray, University of California, Santa Barbara, In the Shadow of the Seawall: Coastal Injustice and the Dilemma of Placekeeping. University of California Press. 2023.
2023 Christof Brandtner. “Green American City: Civic Capacity and the Distributed Adoption
of Urban Innovations.” American Journal of Sociology 128 (3): 627-679. (Co-winner)
2023 Caleb Scoville. “Constructing Environmental Compliance: Law, Science, and
Endangered Species Conservation in California’s Delta.” American Journal of Sociology 127(4): 1094-1150. (Co-winner)
2022 Amalia Leguizamón (Tulane University), Seeds of Power: Environmental Injustice and Genetically Modified Soybeans in Argentina. (Duke University Press 2020).
2022 (Honorable Mention) Colin Jerolmack (New York University), Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town. (Princeton University Press 2021).
2021 Shannon Elizabeth Bell, Cara Daggett, and Christine Labuski (Virginia Tech), “Toward Feminist Energy Systems: Why Adding Women and Solar Panels is Not Enough.” Energy Research & Social Science 68:101557.
2020 Norah MacKendrick (Rutgers University), Better Safe than Sorry: How Consumers Navigate Exposure to Everyday Toxics. (University of California Press 2018).
2020 (Honorable Mention) Jill Lindsey Harrison (University of Colorado, Boulder), From the Inside Out: The Fight for Environmental Justice within Government Agencies. (MIT Press 2019).
2019 Rebecca Elliott (London School of Economics) “The Sociology of Climate Change as a Sociology of Loss.” The European Journal of Sociology 59(3):301-337.
2019 (Honorable Mention) Junia Howell (University of Pittsburgh) and James Elliott (Rice University) “Damages Done: The Longitudinal Impacts of Natural Hazards on Wealth Inequality in the United States.” Social Problems 66(3):448-467.
2018 Alissa Cordner (Whitman College), Toxic Safety: Flame Retardants, Chemical Controversies, and Environmental Health. (Columbia University Press 2016)
2018 (Honorable Mention) Justin Farrell (Yale University), The Battle for Yellowstone: Morality and the Sacred Roots of Environmental Conflict. (Princeton University Press 2015)
2017 Jill Harrison, “Coopted Environmental Justice? Activists’ Roles in Shaping EJ Policy Implementation.” Environmental Sociology 1(4):241-255. 2015.
2016 Liam Downey, Inequality, Democracy, and the Environment. New York University Press. 2015.
2016 Riley Dunlap and Robert Brulle, Climate Change and Society. Oxford University Press. 2015.
2015 Andrew K. Jorgenson and Brett Clark (University of Utah). 2012. “Are the Economy and the Environment Decoupling? A Comparative International Study, 1960–2005.” American Journal of Sociology 118(1):1-44.
2014 Lisa Sun-Hee Park and David N. Pellow (University of Minnesota), The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. the Environment in America’s Eden. (New York University Press 2011)
2013 John Bellamy Foster (University of Oregon) and Hannah Holleman (Amherst College) “Weber and the Environment: Classical Foundations for a Post-exemptionalist Sociology.” American Journal of Sociology. 2012. 117 (6):1625-1673
2012 William Freudenburg (University of California-Santa Barbara) and Robert Gramling (University of Louisiana) Blowout in the Gulf. (MIT Press 2010)
2011 Sherry Cable (University of Tennessee), Tamara Mix (Oklahoma State University), and Thomas Shriver (Oklahoma State University): “Risk Society and Contested Illness: The Case of Nuclear Weapons Workers.” 2008. American Sociological Review. Vol 73(3): 380-401.
2010 Dorceta Taylor (University of Michigan) The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change (Duke University Press 2009).
2009 Liam Downey (University of Colorado at Boulder).
This year the committee considered series of thematically-related articles published between January 1, 2004, and December 31, 2008:
Downey, Liam. 2005. “The Unintended Significance of Race: Environmental Racial Inequality in Detroit.” Social Forces 83(3):971-1008.
Downey, Liam. 2006. “Using Geographic Information Systems to Reconceptualize Spatial Relationships and Ecological Context,” American Journal of Sociology 112(2):567-612.
Downey, Liam. 2006. “Environmental Racial Inequality in Detroit,” Social Forces 85(2):771-796.
Downey, Liam. 2007. “US Metropolitan-area Variation in Environmental Inequality Outcomes,” Urban Studies 44(5/6): 953-977.
2008 Thomas Rudel: “Tropical Forests: Paths of Destruction and Regeneration.”
2007 Brett Clark and Richard York
2006 Peter Dickens: “Society and Nature: Changing our Environment, Changing Ourselves.”
2005 Dara O’Rourke: “Community-Driven Regulation: Balancing Development and the Environment in Vietnam”
2004 Richard York, Eugene Rosa, and Thomas Dietz.
2002 Carlo Jaeger, Ortwin Renn, Eugene Rosa and Thomas Webler: “Risk, Uncertainty, and Rational Action”
2000 Jeffery Broadbent: “Environmental Politics in Japan: Networks of Power and Protest”

Fred Buttel Distinguished Contribution Award

Note: Established in 1983 as the “Distinguished Contribution Award,” the award was renamed to honor Fred Buttel in 2005

2024 Brett Clark, University of Utah
2023 Tammy Lewis, CUNY- Brooklyn College
2022 David Pellow, University of California, Santa Barbara
2021 Lori Peek, University of Colorado-Boulder
2020 Andrew Jorgenson, Boston College
2019 Kari Marie Norgaard, University of Oregon
2018 Kenneth A. Gould, City University of New York, Brooklyn College
2017 Richard York, University of Oregon
2016 Robert J. Brulle, Drexel University
2015 Dorceta Taylor, University of Michigan
2012 Kathleen Tierney, University of Colorado-Boulder
2011 Andrew Szasz, University of California-Santa Cruz
2010 Arthur Mol, Wageningen University, Netherlands
2009 Harvey Molotch, New York University
2008 J. Timmons Roberts, College of William and Mary
2007 Robert Gramling (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) and Penelope Canan (University of Central Florida)
2006 Phil Brown, Brown University
2005 Lee Clarke, Rutgers University
2004 Steve Kroll-Smith, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
2003 Craig Humphrey, The Pennsylvania State University
2002 John Bellamy Foster, University of Oregon
2001 Steve Picou, University of South Alabama
2000 Shirley B. Laska, University of New Orleans
1999 Gene Rosa, Washington State University
1998 Robert Bullard, Clark Atlanta University
1997 Tom Dietz, George Mason University
1996 William R. Freudenburg, University of Wisconsin-Madison
1995 Thomas Rudel, Rutgers University
1994 Frederick Buttel, University of Wisconsin
1993 Marvin E. Olsen, Washington State University
1992 David Sills, Social Science Research Council
1991 Kai T. Erikson, Yale University
1990 James T. Short, Jr., Washington State University
1989 Denton E. Morrison, University of Minnesota
1988 Adeline Levine, SUNY Buffalo
1987 William Michelson, University of Toronto
1986 William R. Catton, Jr., and Riley Dunlap, Washington State University
1984 Allan Schnaiberg, Northwestern University
1983 C. P. Wolf, Social Impact Assessment Center

Robert Boguslaw Award for Technology and Humanism (given bi-yearly)

2025 Valerie Berseth, Oregon State University
2024 Ken Cai Kowalski, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2023 Vitor M. Dias, Indiana University
2021 Lourdes Vera, Northeastern University
2019 Matt Comi, University of Kansas
2017 Amalia Leguizamon, Tulane University
2013 Shannon E. Bell, University of Kentucky
2010 Govind Gopakumar, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
2005 Dr. William James Smith, Jr.
2001 David Pellow
1999 Chris Wellin
1997 Valerie Kuletz
1994 Thomas Webler

ETS Teaching and Mentorship Award (given bi-yearly)

2022 Kristen Shorette, State University of New York at Stony Brook
2020 Sandra Marquart-Pyatt, Michigan State University
2018 Michael Bell, University of Wisconsin
2016 John Foran, University of California-Santa Barbara
2014 Andrew Szasz, University of California-Santa Cruz
2012 Tom Shriver, Oklahoma State University
2011 Richard York, University of Oregon

ETS Practice and Outreach Award (given bi-yearly)

2023 Michael Mendez, University of California, Irvine
2021 Corrie Grosse, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John’s University, and Jennifer Carrera, Michigan State University
2019 Leontina Hormel, University of Idaho
2017 David Pellow, University of California-Santa Barbara
2015 Phil Brown, Northeastern University
2013 Shannon E. Bell, University of Kentucky
2010 Daniel Faber, Northeastern University