Brenda Loyd Award

The Brenda H. Loyd Outstanding Dissertation Award honors an outstanding dissertation in the field of educational measurement.

The winner of the award will receive $1,000 and a commemorative plaque from NCME. In addition, the advisor or committee chair for the award-winning dissertation will receive a letter of congratulations.


2026 Award Details

Eligibility

Nominations will be accepted for dissertations completed between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2025. The author of the dissertation as well as the author’s advisor must both be members of NCME.

Nomination

Nominations must include the following:

  1. A letter of nomination from the author’s advisor;
  2. A summary of the dissertation research (up to 10 double-spaced pages) that includes sections that describe the rationale for the study, brief literature review, research questions, methodology, results, and conclusions;
  3. A copy of the dissertation; and
  4. A statement from the graduate school or a copy of the diploma confirming the date of completion and acceptance of the dissertation.

The nominator and the nominee agree that this work will not be nominated for a similar award in AERA that will be given during the 2025 NCME Annual Meeting.

The 2026 nominations period is now closed. For additional information, please contact the committee chair.

  • 1997: Louis A. Roussos
  • 1998: Thomas S. Paskus
  • 1999: Lori Davis McLeod
  • 2000: Won Chan Lee
  • 2001: David M. Williamson
  • 2002: Edward W. Wiley
  • 2003: Sarah McConnell Hartz
  • 2004: Aimee M. Boyd
  • 2005: Michalis P. Michaelides and Seonghoon Kim
  • 2006: Yanmei Li
  • 2007: Andrew Dean Ho
  • 2008: Roy Levy
  • 2009: Li Cai
  • 2010: Chia-Yi Chiu
  • 2011: Brian Lukoff
  • 2012: Zhushan Li
  • 2013: Duanli Yan
  • 2014: Dr Minjeong Jeon 
  • 2015: Ronli P. Diakow
  • 2016: Yuanchao Emily Bo and Youn-Jeng Choi
  • 2017: Dr. Megan Kuhfeld
  • 2018: Dr. Yunxiao Chen 
  • 2019: Maria Bolsinova
  • 2020: Seohyun Kim
  • 2021: Dandan Liao and Esther Ulitzsch
  • 2022: Kaiwen Man
  • 2023: Jiawei Xiong
  • 2024: Kylie Gorney and Klint Kanopka
  • 2025: Victoria Song and Matthew Naveiras
  • 2026: Dr. Lily An

  • Kaiwen Man, Chair
  • Esther Ulitzsch
  • Jihong Zhang
  • Min Wang
  • Klint Kanopka
  • Jiawei Xiong
  • Jujia Li, Student Member