Jerwen and Chain-Hua Jou Psychology Graduate Award

Description

This award encourages research and scholarly contributions by graduate students in the Department of Psychological Sciences. Each year the department will seek nominations (from the graduate faculty) of students who have an outstanding record and/or potential for high-quality research. This award was initiated in 2020 by Dr. Jerwen Jou, an alumnus of our doctoral program, and his wife, Chain-Hua Jou.

The funds are to be disbursed as four equal summer stipends of no less than $1,000 per student, one from each Ph.D. program. If a program does not have a viable nominee, the funds targeted to that program will be redistributed to increase the stipends for the other programs’ recipients. The stipends are intended to support the students’ summer research activity. A two-page report of that activity must be submitted by the student at the end of the summer. Because the award considers financial need, students currently receiving at least two months of summer support are not eligible.

Nomination and Criteria

The department’s graduate awards committee will solicit nominations from faculty during the spring semester.

The nominee’s advisor must submit to the chair of the department’s graduate awards committee the following materials in electronic format:

  • Nomination letter (1-2 pages, from the advisor) highlighting the student's most significant achievements and their potential for producing outstanding research during the upcoming summer.
  • Nominee’s CV.
  • Description of the proposed summer research activity (no more than one page) and a one-paragraph statement of financial need. This document should be written by the nominee with input from their advisor.

Criteria include:

  • Must be making satisfactory progress toward their degree – a student must be no more than one year behind on progress benchmarks.
  • Academic performance.
  • Scholarly productivity. Evaluation of this activity will consider what is typical for the student’s area of research and methodology.
  • Potential for the summer stipend to accelerate the student’s production of high-quality research.
  • Financial need.

This award may be received by an individual graduate student only once during their tenure at the university. It is possible that fewer awards will be given if there are no nominations from a particular program (I/O, C/HF, BN, S/P) or insufficient evidence of a worthy recipient.