The Tom L. Popejoy Dissertation Prize was established as a permanent memorial to the late Tom L. Popejoy, President of the University of New Mexico from 1948 to 1968. The award recognizes and encourages the highest level of academic excellence.

Competition for the prize is structured on a three-year rotation, so that in one year, the departments of Art and Art History (including MFA) and Humanities are asked to submit their best dissertations; in the next, Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics & Statistics; and last, Social Sciences and Education (including EdD).

The departments eligible for submitting nominations for Spring 2010 are in the third category: Anthropology, Communication, Economics, Latin American Studies, Linguistics, Political Science, Sociology, Art Education, Counselor Education, Educational Leadership, Educational Linguistics, Educational Psychology, Language, Literacy & Sociocultural Studies, Family Studies, Health Education, Physical Education, Exercise Science, Multicultural Teacher & Childhood Education, Organizational Learning & Instructional Technology, and Special Education. 

Each of these departments or programs may nominate one dissertation from a student that graduated any time between the Spring 2007 semester through the end of the Fall 2009 semester.  A jury of two tenured faculty members and the Dean of Graduate Studies will select the award-winning dissertation. The original dissertation readers’ reports will be made available to the jury, whose deliberations will be confidential. If no dissertation is found worthy of the prize in a given year, no award will be made and the rotation will continue the following year.