•    Last year, MSS awarded more than $35,000 in grants and awards to MSS members.
•    A history of the professional award winners is here: past winners.

Awards & Grants from the Midwest Sociological Society

• gives awards in several categories of professional service and scholarship,
• sponsors an annual student paper competition with six cash prizes,
• offers small grants to support research by mss members,
• and provides travel grants to members who are students or adjunct/contingent faculty attending the mss annual meeting.

MSS Annual Meeting Travel Awards

Apply for the 2026 Award.

Travel Award for Part-Time, Adjunct, and Contingent Faculty 
Applications Open: January 1 - February 15
Application Details
Apply for the 2026 Award.

Competitive Awards for Professionals

Annual Jane Addams Outstanding Service Award 
Nominations due November 1
Award Application Details  

Annual MSS Distinguished Book Award
Nominations due October 31
Award Application Details

Biennial Early Career Scholarship Award**
Nominations due November 15, 2027 (awarded Spring 2028)
Award Application Details

Award Application Details

Read the current Call for Research Grants.

Grants for Research - Fall 2026
Applications accepted August 15 – September 15 

Grants for Research - Spring 2027
Applications accepted January 15 – February 15 

Grants for Grass-Roots Organizations in Support of Social Action

Nomination Details

PAST AWARD WINNERS

Read a full list of professional awardees since 2008.

MSS Distinguished Book Award

2026

Emergency: COVID-19 and the Uneven Valuation of Life 
University of Chicago Press, 2024
Claire Decoteau, University of Illinois at Chicago

Honorable Mention: Birth Behind Bars: The Carceral Control of Pregnant Women in Prison
New York University Press, 2025
Rebecca Rodriguez Carey, Emporia State University 

2025

Precarious Protections: Unaccompanied Minors Seeking Asylum in the United States 
University of California Press, 2023
Chiara Galli, University of Chicago

Honorable Mention: Insurgent Communities: How Protests Create a Filipino Diaspora 
University of Chicago Press, 2023
Sharon M. Quinsaat, Grinnell College 

2024

Defining Sexual Misconduct: Power, Media, and #METOO 
University of Regina Press, 2022
Stacey Hannem, Wilfred Laurier University, and Christopher J. Schneider, Brandon University

Honorable Mention: Revolution and Witchcraft: The Code of Ideology in Unsettled Times 
Palgrave McMillan, 2023
Gordon C. Chang, Western Illinois University 

MSS The Sociological Quarterly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award

2025 - Daniel J. Bartholomay and Meagan Pendleton for their article, ""Doing Sexuality: How Married Bisexual, Queer and Pansexual People Navigate Passing and Erasure." (64:3); 

Honorable Mention: A.P. Davis and Y. Zhang for their article, "Civil Society and Democracy under Pressure: Does Authoritarian Mobilization and Party Incapacity Diminish the Positive Effect of Civil Society?." (65:2)

2023 - Jennifer M. Whitmer for their article, ""Between a Regular Person and a Brand": Managing the Contradictions." (62:1); 

Honorable Mention: Jess Lee for their article, "Race. Same-Sex Marriage, and the Politics of Respectability among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Racial Minorities." (62:3)

MSS Early Career Scholarship Award

2026 - Minwoo Jung, Loyola University Chicago
2024 - Daniel Bartholomay, Texas A&M University
2022 - Celeste Campos-Castillo, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
2018 - Andrea Nichols, Washington University in St. Louis

MSS Jane Addams Outstanding Service Award

2023 - Laurie Cooper Stoll, University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse
2022 - Gina Petonito, Founding Member of "Writing YOUR Way LLC"
2021 - Enid Logan, University of Minnesota

MSS First Generation and Working-Class Advancement Award

2026 - Diane Rodgers, Northern Illinois University

MSS Teaching Excellence Awards

Full Time Faculty

2026 - Paul Stock, University of Kansas

Graduate Student Instructor

2026 - Memory Manda, University of Nebraska-Lincoln