The S4 Graduate Student Paper Prize is given for a graduate student paper that employs spatial analysis/thinking or GIS. The next submission deadline will be in March 2026. Only complete papers will be judged, but it's fine for manuscripts to be in draft format (or even recently published). The winner will receive a prize of $500 and will be invited to present their paper as part of the S4 speaker series in the Spring 2026 semester. Many of you are writing papers - why not submit them? To be considered for the prize, simply email Kevin Mwenda a pdf of your paper by the deadline. Papers co-authored with other current students are fine, but not with faculty.
Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences (S4)
S4 Graduate Student Paper Prize
Current Winners
2025
- Winner: Moritz Poll, Economics, "Market Day Scheduling, Market Size, and Rural Development" [Paper]
Past Winners
- Winner: Jonathan Tollefson, Sociology, "Racial environmental inequality in US cities, 1880-1930"
- Second Place: Yu-Cheng (Richard) Shih, History, "Reeds, Snails, and Parasites: Bilharzia Disease and Wetland Ecology in China’s Yangzi Delta from the 1870s to 1949"
- Third Place: Sertaç Sen, Anthropology, "Something Wicked This Way Comes: Infrastructural Ideology and the Ambivalence of Infrastructures in Turkey from the Late Ottoman Period to the Cold War"
- Honorable Mention: Jonathon Acosta, Sociology, "New Immigrants in Local Politics"
- None
- Winner: Aarushi Kalra, Economics, "A `Ghetto' of One's Own: Communal Violence, Residential Segregation and Group Education Outcomes in India" [Paper]
- Second Place: Jose Belmar & Diego Gentile Passaro, Economics, "Bimodal Transport Infrastructure and Regional Development: Evidence from Argentina, 1960 - 1991" [Paper]
- Third Place: Santiago Hermo, Diego Gentile Passaro & Gabriele Borg, Economics, "Minimum Wage as a Place-based Policy: Evidence from US Housing Rental Markets"
- Honorable Mention: Geetika Nagpal & Alessandro Sovera, Economics, "Let the Water Flow: The Impact of Electrification on Agriculture"
- Winner: Juan Pablo Uribe, Economics, "The Effect of Location Based Subsidies on the Housing Market"
- Second Place: Chinyere Agbai, Sociology, "Wealth Begins at Home: The GI Bill of 1944 and the Making of the Racial Wealth Gap in Homeownership and Home Value"
- Winner: Miriam Rothenberg, Archeology and the Ancient World, "Monstrous Giants of Infamous Repute: Wind-powered Sugar Mills as Constructions of Control in Colonial Montserrat"
- Second Place: Shunsuke Tsuda, Economics, "Economics of Subsistence in Africa: Land Endowments, Population Density, and Agglomeration Forces for Market Transactions"
- Third Place: Aaron Weisbrod, Economics, "Housing Booms and Urban Frictions: The Impact of the 1917 Halifax Explosion on Local Property Values"
- Winner: Thomas Marlow, Sociology, "Environmental Justice in the Post-Industrial Landscape"
- Second Place: Jamie Hansen-Lewis, Economics, "Does Air Pollution Lower Productivity? Evidence from Manufacturing in India"
- Winner: Jorge Pérez Pérez, Economics, "City Minimum Wages"
- None
- Winner: Benjamin Bellman, Sociology, "Slicing the Pie: Occupational and Residential Stratification in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia"
- Second Place: Heitor Pellegrina, Economics, "Agricultural Productivity and the Spatial Economy: Theory and Evidence from Brazil"
- Winner: Michelle Marcus, Economics, "On the Road to Recovery: Gasoline Content Regulations and Child Health"
- Second Place: David Glick, Economics, "Groundwater Quality and Crop Growth: Evidence from North-Central India"
- Third Place: Marcia Pescador Jimenez, Public Health, "Proximity to Green Areas Improves Self-Rated Health Among Older Puerto Rican Adults in Massachusetts"
- Winner: David Glancy, Economics, "Measuring Spatial Banking Competition"
- Second Place: Alexei Abrahams, Economics, "Mobility and Inequality: Evidence from the Second Intifada"
- Third Place: Martin Fiszbein, Economics, "Agricultural Diversication and Economic Development: Evidence from U.S. History"
- Honorable Mention: Patrick Mayne, Sociology, "Neighborhood Change, Social Capital, and Health: The Case of Public Housing Demolitions in Chicago"
- Honorable Mention: Ida Sahlu, Public Health, "Distance to Snail Site as a Potential Predictor of the Spatial Heterogeneity of Schistosomiasis Infection"
- Winner: Elena Esposito, Brown University and the University of Bologna, "The Geography of Disease Immunities and the African Slave Trade"
- Honorable Mention: Sean Dinces, American Studies, "A Bad Case of ‘Peanut Envy’: Concessions Markets and Monopoly Power at Chicago’s United Center"