Overview

The URA Honorary Doctoral Thesis Award is one of the honorary awards conferred annually by the Universities Research Association (URA). The award recognizes the most outstanding doctoral thesis based on research conducted at Fermilab or in collaboration with Fermilab scientists.

The URA Doctoral Thesis Award is presented at the Fermilab Users and Affiliates Meeting in June 2025. Awardees receive $10,000 from URA and present their work at the Meeting. 

Eligibility

The URA Graduate Thesis Award Committee will judge each nominated thesis and select the winner based on clarity of presentation, originality, and physics content. To qualify, the thesis must have been submitted in fulfillment of the Ph.D. requirements in the 2024 calendar year, be written in English, and it must have been submitted in electronic form to the Fermilab Publications Office per Fermilab policy.

Nomination

Two nomination letters supporting the merits of the thesis being nominated,

1. Member of the thesis committee of the Ph.D. granting institution.
2. Fermilab scientist who collaborated in the thesis work.

Nominations must be submitted to the chair of the Award Committee Chair, John Campbell (johnmc@fnal.gov) by Friday, April 4, 2025. All nomination material should be sent in electronic form, .pdf preferably.

Call for Nominations

The call for nominations will be issued on February 3, 2025, by the Award Committee Chair, FNAL Chief Research Officer (CRO), and URA.

Notification of Award

By May 9, 2025 the committee chair will inform URA and the CRO of the selected awardee and will subsequently contact the award recipient, through an official letter of award notification. Such a letter includes a citation that speaks for the spirit of the award, including the rationale behind the awardee selection and work performed, the awardee’s full name, institution, email address, and phone number.

Doctoral Thesis Award Committee

The URA Honorary Doctoral Thesis Award Committee members reflect a sufficiently diverse representation of disciplines and expertise to ensure eligible nominees’ appropriate and fair consideration.  The members and chair of the award committee are appointed by the Fermilab Director/CRO.