Undergraduate Awards
Leo Meltzer Award
This award was established many years ago to celebrate the contributions of Professor Leo Meltzer to this Department, which he served from 1963 until 1990. Professor Meltzer was a distinguished scholar, an internationally recognized social psychologist, a wonderful colleague, and a dedicated teacher at Cornell. In light of Dr. Meltzer's devotion to undergraduate education, his colleagues and family established an award to honor the best undergraduate thesis in the field of social psychology, broadly defined.
| 2004 | Megan Kamil | "The Relationship Between Trust and Reputation " |
| 2004 | Lauren Polakoff | "Gender Roles and Gender's Role: Gender in Advertising" |
| 2005 | Heather Ferguson | "What Messages Do Your Children's Books Hold: Predominant Themes In Award Winning And Best Selling Children's Picture Books From Twentieth Century America" |
| 2005 | Kaprisha Cressel | "Alternative Career Choices For Nevada Women: Exotic Dancers in Las Vegas" |
| 2006 | Shana Platz | "Hearing the Voices of Abused and Neglected Children: An Examination of Representation for Children in Protection Proceedings and the Implications for Child Welfare" |
| 2007 | Christopher Frank | “Hegemonic Masculinity and Same-sex Friendships” |
| 2008 | Christy Kidner | “ 'Looks' Like She Means Business: Appearance Norm Conformity and Women's Occupational Aspirations” |
| 2009 | Shanel Fields | “The Self-Segregation of African American Students on the Cornell Campus” |
The Robert Wertheimer Award
Robert Wertheimer is a former sociology major who graduated with honors in sociology. He remains devoted to both the field of sociology, to the Cornell Sociology department, and to the University. As a tribute to his contributions, the department recently established a prize for the best paper or thesis outside the field of social psychology (and hence not eligible for the Meltzer award).
| 2004 | Freya Estreller | "I was a Door-to-Door Salesman: An Ethnographic Examination of the Organizational Structure and Culture of a Direct Sales and Marketing Firm" |
| 2004 | Asa Wilks | "The Spatial Concentration of Affluence in Urban America, 1990-2000" |
| 2005 | Sarah Lee | "Same Only Story in the "New" South Africa: Post-apartheid Racial and Gender Inequality" |
| 2006 | Elizabeth Becker | "Kosovar Political Migrants and Narration of the Nation: Homeland Cosmopolitans and Ethnic Chauvinists Abroad" |
| 2007 | Anny Fenton | “The Motivations Behind the Rise in Nationalist Party Support in London Over the Past Decade” |
| 2008 | Marielle Macher | “Immigrant Farmworker Social Integration in Rural New York” |
| 2009 | Jeffrey Javed | “Legal-Institutionalism, Political Opportunities, and Environmental Contention in Post-Mao China” |