The Division 34 Graduate Student Research Award recognizes outstanding original research conducted by a graduate student on any topic in environmental, conservation, or population psychology. The award consists of a certificate and a $150 prize. The award will be judged by a panel of division members and will be awarded on the basis of both the quality of the research and the writing.

The submission may be an original empirical investigation, a qualitative review paper, or a meta-analysis. There may be co-authors, but the student submitting the paper must be first author. Nominees must be current members of Division 34.

Students who would like their work considered for the award must make a submission, which should include the following:

1. a cover letter indicating that they would like to be considered for the award;

2. a letter from the student's supervisor confirming that the applicant is a graduate student in psychology (or affiliated field) and that the applicant's work on the project merits first authorship;

3. a full paper in APA (7th ed.) format reporting the project (This should be a complete report of the work, as would be written for a journal submission.);

4. two copies of the paper: one with the authors' names included and one without, so blind reviews may be done.

Email your nominations along with any questions about the award to the current chair of the Awards Committee at awards@sepcp.org

Note: Submissions do not have to be of published or accepted journal articles, although such submissions will be given full consideration.

2026: Sarena Sabine

“Lack of agreement on the term ‘nature’ impacts self-reports: Experimental evidence regarding time in nature”

2025: Danielle Goldwert

“A Megastudy of Behavioral Interventions to Catalyze Collective Climate Action”

2024: Estefanya C. Vazquez Casaubon

“ 'I conserve more water than others, do I?' An exploratory study examining self-assessment misperceptions of water conservation”

2023: Sandra Geiger

“Social misperceptions surrounding climate change beliefs and implications for climate action across 11 countries”

2022: Katharina Koller

“Identifying bias in self-reported pro-environmental behavior”

2021: Jennifer Cole

“Descriptive social norms explain political elite influence on climate policy attitudes”

2020: Nathan Shipley

“A meta-analysis of emotional valence and arousal in predicting pro-environmental behavior”

2019: Karine Lacroix

“Developing and validating the Dragons of Inaction Psychological Barriers (DIPB) scale”

2018: Phillip Ehret

"Partisan barriers to bipartisanship: Understanding climate policy polarization"

2017: Mark Hoffarth

"Green on the outside, red on the inside: Perceived environmentalist threat as a factor explaining political polarization of climate change"

2016: Nathaniel Geiger

"Climate of silence: Pluralistic ignorance as a barrier to climate change discussion"

2015: Do J. Lee

"Embodied bicycle commuters in a car world"

2014: Sander van der Linden

"On the relationship between personal experience, affect and risk perception: The case of climate change“

2013: Kaitlin Toner

“The impact of individual and group feedback on environmental intentions and self-beliefs”