Early Career Award 2026
About the Award
The Society for the Science of Motivation (SSM) annually confers an Early Career Award to a scientist who has made an outstanding empirical and/or theoretical contribution to motivation science. The winner will be recognized at the society’s annual meeting, on the society’s website, as well as in the society’s empirical journals Motivation and Emotion and Motivation Science.
Submission Criteria
The Society for the Science of Motivation (SSM) annually confers an Early Career Award to a scientist who has made an outstanding empirical and/or theoretical contribution to motivation science. The winner will be recognized at the society’s annual meeting, on the society’s website, as well as in the society’s empirical journals Motivation and Emotion and Motivation Science.
Submission Criteria
- Nominations must be made by one individual (group nominations will not be considered). Individuals may self-nominate or be nominated by another person.
- The nominee must be a current member of the SSM.
- The period of eligibility is 12 years following the completion of doctoral training. Extensions will be considered for nominees who have taken time away from research for reasons such as medical, disability, or family care. Previous nominees who did not receive the award may be nominated again.
a) A bullet-pointed list of accomplishments by the nominee. Each bullet point should be no more than three sentences in length, with a maximum of five bullet points.
b) the nominee's current CV,
c) a list of up to four of the nominee's most significant publications, and
d) not more than two letters of recommendation, at least one of which is from a current SSM member (letters should not exceed two pages).
How to Submit:b) the nominee's current CV,
c) a list of up to four of the nominee's most significant publications, and
d) not more than two letters of recommendation, at least one of which is from a current SSM member (letters should not exceed two pages).
Please send nominations to the chair of the SSM Early Career Award Committee via email containing all information a), b), and c) in one single PDF document. The letter(s) of recommendation can be submitted separately to the chair. The chair is Abigail Scholer: ascholer@virginia.edu.
Nominations for the 2026 Early Career Award will be accepted until March 6, 2026.
Early Career Award Committee in 2026
- Chair: Abigail Schooler (University of Virginia)
- Philip Gable (University of Delaware)
- Marie Hennecke (University of Bochum)
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Marina Milyavskaya
Carleton University
Early Career Award Winner 2025
Former Laureates
2024, Jocelyn J. Bélanger, Carnegie Mellon University Qatar
2023, Erik Bijleveld, Radboud University
2023, Marie Hennecke, University of Siegen
2022, Szu-chi Huang, Stanford University
2021, Abigail Schooler, University of Waterloo
2020, Philip A. Gable, University of Delaware