Early Career Award Holders

2023

The members of the LSA Awards Committee were particularly impressed by Nicole Holliday’s rich publication record (23 publications to date, most within the last 5 years, plus 4 more accepted and 6 more under review, in a wide variety of journals.

Nicole has given 22 invited talks since receiving the Ph.D. There is impressive public awareness of her work: she is quoted in innumerable articles in major newspapers (New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, NPR) and other media outlets. She has contributed much to the LSA, serving as Chair of the Committee on Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics 2017-2018.

2022

Charles B. Chang (Boston University) and Amy Rose Deal (U.C. Berkeley)

Charles B. Chang is recognized  "...for contributions to the understanding of bilingual sound systems and cross-linguistic interactions, phonetic drift, and language learning over the lifespan, and to fostering diversity and inclusion within linguistics". 

Amy Rose Deal established herself early on as a leader in the subfield of cross-linguistic semantics, and a gifted theoretician whose bold, methodologically innovative, and influential research straddles both syntax and semantics. Taking aim at the some of the deepest, most difficult questions, Deal articulates her proposals with a compelling, forcefully distinctive voice paralleled by few. Her groundbreaking work with Nez Perce, her careful and prodigious writing, her tightly-woven presentations, and her meticulous empirical contributions reflect a maturity and clarity expected of a researcher well beyond her early career stage, and serve as inspiration to junior and senior researchers alike.

Previous years

2021 Nicholas Henriksen (University of Michigan)

2020 Gabriela Pérez Báez (University of Oregon)

2019 Andrea Berez-Kroeker (University of Hawai'i at Mānoa)

2018 Kristen Syrett (Rutgers University)

2017 Jeffrey Heinz (University of Delaware) 

2016 Judith Tonhauser (Ohio State University)

2015 Lev Michael (University of California, Berkeley)

2014 Adrian Brasoveanu (University of California, Santa Cruz)

2013 Jon Sprouse (University of California, Irvine)

2012 Seth Cable (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

2011 Andries Coetzee (University of Michigan)

About the Early Career Award

Instituted in 2010, this award recognizes scholars early in their career who have made outstanding contributions to the field of linguistics. The award provides travel reimbursement (up to $500) and complimentary registration for the next Annual Meeting. Nominators must be current LSA members.

Frequency

Annually, as nominations warrant.

Eligibility 

Eligible for nomination in this year’s award cycle are those LSA members who received their Ph.D. between January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2023. (When the Early Career Award was instituted, the time limit was seven years. It was raised to ten years in 2015, to take effect with the 2016 award.)

The letter of nomination (to be submitted in sections via the online form) should include the following, as appropriate:

• evidence of satisfying eligibility criteria
• discussion of scholarly products and evaluation of their importance/significance. Mention breadth of (sub)field(s) that are impacted and depth of impact in specific subfields
• discussion of publication quality and rate, in comparison to other linguists at that career stage
• evidence of original thinking: of having gone beyond dissertation work into different/cutting edge areas, and/or of having explored new approaches to old problems
• discussion of contributions to public awareness and exposure to linguistics
• discussion of contributions to the field (conference planning, service to local and national organizations, etc.)
• discussion of contributions to language community or communities
• discussion of contributions to workplace, university/departmental life, if appropriate