Topics Map > Academic Resources
Topics Map > Forest and Wildlife Ecology
Forest and Wildlife Ecology - Graduate Student Awards - Best Disssertation Awards
There are two annual best dissertation award given to a Forestry and to a Wildlife Ecology graduate student.
The Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology annual “Best Dissertation Awards”. One award will be given in Wildlife Ecology, and one in Forestry, and include $500.
| Academic Year | Forestry | Wildlife Ecology |
| 2016-2017 | Catalina Muntean | Brendan Reid |
| 2017-2018 | Chris Latimer | |
| 2018-2019 | ||
| 2019-2020 |
Awardees will be selected based on two main criteria:
- Intellectual merit will be assessed based on dissertation papers published, and the scientific contribution of the dissertation
- Broader impacts include the relevance of the work for resource management, unique outreach efforts, citizen scientists involvement, and undergraduate mentoring in the research.
PhD Advisors in the programs can nominate their students. The application deadline is typically in the Spring of each year. Students must have been enrolled in either the PhD program in Wildlife Ecology, or the PhD Program in Forestry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. All graduate students in the two programs who defended their PhD dissertation successfully within 24 months prior to the deadline are eligible.
Required elements of the application are:
- a 2-page (max) nomination letter by the advisor
- a 2-page (max) dissertation summary by the student that should explicitly state the intellectual merit and the broader impacts
- the CV of the student in which the status of each journal article at the time of the defense is indicated (i.e., whether the article was published, in review, or in preparation)
- unofficial graduate transcripts of the student
- abstracts of submitted or published dissertation papers (if available)
Accounting and award information: The best dissertation are awards are given to individuals who have completed their dissertation and typically have left the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We provide direct payments to the individuals and funds come from the Department’s general foundation account.
Recipients, unless currently employed by the UW-Madison, will need to complete and send the Russell Laboratories Adminstrative Services Center a W-9. The award is taxable. The form can be downloaded at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf.