Bradley Hanson Award

The Bradley Hanson Award for Contributions to Educational Measurement has been established to honor Bradley Hanson’s contributions to the field of educational measurement and to further advance the goals embodied in his work.

Applicants must describe a recently completed research project or propose a new research project that promises to make a substantive contribution to the field of educational measurement or the development, instruction, or mentoring of new professionals in the field. A typical time frame for the expected completion of a proposed project is one to two years.

The recipient will be awarded $1,250 and a commemorative plaque from NCME, which will be presented at the NCME Annual Meeting. For additional information on Bradley Hanson and his body of work, please go to the Bradley Hanson website that is maintained in his memory. You may also contact the committee chair with any questions or comments.

2026 Award Details

Eligibility

To be eligible for the award a candidate must 1) be a member of NCME, and 2) have completed, be working on, or be proposing a project that makes a significant contribution to the field of educational measurement or a significant contribution to the development of new professionals in the field. Individuals or groups of individuals at any stage in their careers are eligible.

Nomination

Nomination (application) packages for the award must include a) the letter of nomination, b) a completed application form, c) at least one letter of recommendation from person(s) other than the nominator which addresses the qualifications of the candidate and the importance of the project, d) a project description of 1,500 words or less which must provide details on the specific research project to be supported by the award and information on how the $1,250 will be spent, and e) a current curriculum vitae.

View the FAQs about this award here.

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 2026 Annual Meeting. The letter of nomination and the letter(s) of recommendation must be written on official letterhead.

The complete application package, including the letter of nomination, the letter(s) of recommendation, the application form, project description, and curriculum vitae, must be submitted electronically via email by January 9, 2026.

Please attach the application package as a zip file to your email and submit it to the Bradley Hanson Award Committee Chair, Shiyu Wang (swang44@uga.edu), with cc to the NCME Awards Board Liaison, Sue Lottridge (sue.lottridge@pearson.com), and the NCME management office (ncme@ncme.org).

  • 2005 Seonghoon Kim and Gary Skaggs
  • 2006 Won-Chan Lee
  • 2007 Jianbin Fu
  • 2008 no recipient
  • 2009 Ying Cheng
  • 2010 J. Patrick Meyer
  • 2011 Werner Wothke
  • 2012 Matthias von Davier
  • 2013 Lihua Yao
  • 2014 Hong Jiao
  • 2015 Chaitanya Ramineni, Brent Bridgeman, and Paul Deane

  • 2016 Sun-Joo Cho
  • 2017 Wenchao Ma and Jimmy de a Torre
  • 2018 Sandip Sinharay
  • 2019 Hongwen Guo, Mo Zhang, Paul Deane, and Randy Bennett
  • 2020 Matthew Johnson and Sandip Sinharay
  • 2021 Steven Culpepper and James Balamuta
  • 2022 David Magis, Duanli Yan, and Alina von Davier
  • 2023 Paul Dean, Duanli Yan, and Priya Kannan
  • 2024 Chris Han, Edison Choe, Hwanggyu Lim, Jamie Malaesta, Paulius Satkus, Sung-Hyuck Lee, and Yan Fu
  • 2025 Chun Wang and David Weiss

This committee is responsible for all steps associated with the selection and recognition of the recipient of the Bradley Hanson Award for Contributions to Educational Measurement.

  • Scott Hanson, Permanent Member
  • Shiyu Wang, Chair
  • Edison Choe
  • Hwanggyu Lim
  • Tom Proctor
  • Nana Kim
  • Stefanie Wind
  • Nana Amma Asamoah, Student Member

Donations to the Bradley A. Hanson Memorial Fund may be made payable to the:

Arizona Community Foundation
Bradley A. Hanson Memorial Fund
2201 E. Camelback Road, Suite 405B
Phoenix, AZ 85016

Bradley Hanson Award FAQs

Yes. You can apply for this award at any time of your career and applications from young scholars are particularly encouraged. For example, you can apply as a graduate student pursuing original research toward a Master’s or doctoral degree, as a new faculty member who is starting to build a research portfolio, or as a more established scholar who has made advances in an area that reflects the work and values of Brad Hanson. Even though the award supports research work, this can include work that focuses on professional activities such as professional development, curricular program, instruction, teaching or mentoring programs.

Yes. Independent of where you are currently in your career you can apply as a representative for a group of researchers with whom you are working on a project. The names of all the applicants have to be on the form and CVs of all applicants must be submitted. The project description should describe the nature of the contribution of the group.

No. The call for the award is deliberately open in this regard. Your research project should, however, be in an area that is consistent with the work that Brad Hanson has done. Brad was a very productive scholar who worked in a wide variety of topics relating to educational measurement so we encourage you to learn about his work and see how your work fits in this regard!

No, but it can be. Your research project can be recently completed, newly proposed, or in progress. If it is completed, it needs to have been completed within the past 12 months. If you are applying for the award with a project that is not yet completed (i.e., newly proposed or in progress), you need to be able to complete it within two years from when you receive the award.

Yes. There is currently no limit to the number of times that you can submit an application. While repeated submissions are accepted, they are not given any preference over new submissions. In other words, each application is reviewed each year anew in the context of the other applications that have been submitted.

Yes. Brad was a mentor for quite a few international students and worked with people around the world. Thus, we specifically encourage international scholars and students to apply as well.

No. Please see nomination information above for deadline.

Nominations and applications for the award will only be accepted via email to the contacts listed in the above nomination information.

No. Please stay within the limit to make the work easier for the reviewers of the applications. An application that contains a letter of more than 1500 words will be viewed unfavorably.

Yes. Please do not submit separate documents or links to web sites that contain extensive additional information. The application letter serves to provide the reviewers with a concise description of your completed or proposed research and is not meant as a comprehensive documentation of all aspects of that research similar to a grant application or final report.

No. You may use the font type, margin size, page layout, and style manual that you prefer. To make the application easier to read for the reviewers, you may want to consider using a standard layout such as 1-inch margins on each side, 12-point font, and a 1.5 or double-spacing. Your application will not be evaluated negatively if you do not follow these recommendations, however.

Yes. Every application will be read by every member of the Bradley Hanson award committee. There are currently nine committee members, many of whom have a Ph.D. in an area related to educational measurement.

Yes. The application will be evaluated using five-point rating scales according to analytic criteria that characterize the project itself (e.g., predicted significance of contribution, practical feasibility, methodological appropriateness, consistency and coherence of description) and the applicant (e.g., academic qualifications for proposed project, potential for successful managing and completion of the project, career development objectives, etc.). After a reduced pool of applicants has been determined, the final decision will be made consensually on the basic of the analytic ratings and holistic impressions.

Yes. You will receive a $1250 award and a commemorative plaque, which will be presented to you (or your group) at a ceremony during the annual meeting of NCME that follows the application deadline. There are no specific restrictions on how you use the money except that it should be spent for the project, if one is being proposed or in process. Note, however, that the award does not include transportation, lodging, membership, or reservation fees to the NCME conference, which are your responsibility should you be chosen as the award recipient.

Yes. It is expected that you attend the annual meeting of NCME to accept the award. Moreover, we hope that you will be able to present your research at a later NCME meeting in an invited session upon the completion of the work. We had the first of such sessions in 2009 and plan to have them in regular intervals of about three years or so. We do not require you to present your research at the next session since we cannot support your travel or accommodations, but we certainly hope that you would be able to do so!

Yes. We are delighted that you would want to financially support other researchers and contribute to the memory of Brad Hanson through this award! You can contribute as an individual or as an organization and donations of any amount are welcome! You will be acknowledged as a contributor on the website of the award unless you specifically indicate that you do not want to be named. Supporting the fund is easy and can be done via the following institution:


             Arizona Community Foundation
             Bradley A. Hanson Memorial Fund
             2122 E. Highland Avenue, Suite 400
             Phoenix, AZ 85016

Yes. The award committee would like to solicit your suggestions about other means for making this award more meaningful to education measurement researchers that wish to honor Brad Hanson and his work. If you have any suggestions or would like to make a contribution to the award that is of a non-financial nature, please contact the committee chair.

Yes. We are delighted that you consider serving on this committee! The committee currently consists of nine members and membership is on a rotating basis with three-year memberships. If you are interested in serving on the awards committee, please do not hesitate to contact the committee chair.