The Graduate Association for Food Studies proudly confers two annual graduate student awards for recognition of outstanding scholarship in the field of food within the social sciences, humanities and related disciplines. We are excited to announce our 2026 call for submissions, open now!
2026 Call for Submissions:
Alex McIntosh Award for Ph.D. Dissertation
Bill Whit Award for Master’s Thesis
The Graduate Association for Food Studies (GAFS), the Student Caucus of the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS), supports and celebrates graduate students of all fields who contribute to the academic study of food. We proudly announce our fourth annual graduate student awards: the Alex McIntosh Award for Ph.D. Dissertation and the Bill Whit Award for Master’s Thesis, and invite eligible graduate students and recent graduates to apply.
The Awards Committee is dedicated to increasing diversity and inclusion within our Association. To this end, we highly encourage submissions from individuals from historically underrepresented groups and/or regions in mainstream academia.
GAFS seeks nominations and applications for two 2026 awards: (1) The Bill Whit Award for a Distinguished Master’s Thesis and (1) The Alex McIntosh Award for a Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation. One winner and one runner-up will be selected for each track. Winners will receive $500, and runners-up will receive $250; all winners and runners-up will be invited to present their work at a GAFS-hosted webinar. Winners will also have the opportunity to publish their work in the Graduate Journal of Food Studies.
Applicants from any field, discipline, and country are invited to apply. Applicants must be current students working on their thesis/dissertation or recent graduates who completed their degrees no earlier than June 2024 and who do not yet hold a tenure-track faculty position. This year, we proudly accept submissions in English, Spanish, Italian, and Turkish. A panel of graduate student judges will evaluate applications based on the work’s contribution to the field, the strength of the argument, the quality of the writing, and the creativity and innovation of the project. Non-standard or creative theses and dissertations are also welcomed and encouraged.
To apply, please submit your application materials via email to gradfoodstudies@gmail.com.
1 –A cover page. (Please do not include this information on the other two documents; these should be submitted anonymously, ie, no author details)
2 – An anonymous 800-1000-word summary of the thesis or dissertation; this should include the main ideas and contribution(s) to food studies
3 – An anonymous excerpt of the thesis or dissertation: ideally, a cohesively written maximum of 25 pages, or a comparable portfolio excerpt for creative submissions
The deadline for submissions is February 16, 2026. Winners will be announced in late March 2026. Presentations via webinar will take place in April 2026.
Please direct any questions to Rikki Brown at gradfoodstudies@gmail.com.
For previous award winners and their research click here
Award winner presentations (2022, 2023, & 2025) can be viewed on the GAFS YouTube Channel
Food Studies Research Talks
In order to celebrate and discuss the rich and diverse research showcased in the annual submissions, we host an online event for our winners and runners-up to present their passionate research.
2026 awardees will present their research in April 2026. An exact date will be determined after awardees are announced.
gradfoodstudies.org 