The prize is awarded for the best paper presented by a student at the Annual Meeting of the SEM Southern California and Hawai'i Chapter. The awardees are:
1994
Jean Kidula (UCLA), "The Appropriation of Western-Derived Music Styles into Kenyan Traditions: A Case Study of Some Nairobi Christian Musics"
Honorable Mention to: Helena Simonette (UCLA), "Cowbell Sound in Swiss Folk Music: From Naturalness to Ideology"
1995
Sherrie Tucker (UC-Santa Cruz), "West Coast Women: A Jazz Genealogy"
Honorable Mentions to:
Nancy Currey (UCSB), "The Personalization of History: The Many Bases of Meaning for a Present-Day Algerian Andalusian Musician"
Mark DeWitt (UC Davis), "California as a Field Site for Studying Cajun and Zydeco Music and Dance"
Nicola Mulholland (UCSB), "So Who's Dancing Tahitian in California: Issues in Cultural Practices and Non-Indigenous Participants"
David Trasoff (UCSB), "The Changing Sarod: Tracing the Historical Development of an Instrument in Modern India"
1996
David Ake (UCLA), "Time, Narrative, and the Jazz Tradition in Bill Frisell's 'Have a Little Faith'"
Honorable Mentions to:
Mark Tusler (UCSB), "'Rutsubo' (Taiko L.A.): Issues of Repertory, Performance Practice, and Ideologies"
Minako Waseda (UCSB), "Iemoto System in Traditional Japanese Music in California: Its Transformation and Influences"
1997
No prize given
1998
Heidi Feldman (UCLA), "Which Side are you On? Cultural Politics and the Art-Ethnography Continuum?"
1999
Charles Sharp (UCLA), "Where is the Riot in Zoot Suit Riot?"
2000
Sonia Tamar Seeman (UCLA) "'You're Roman!' Musical Practice and the Creation of Social Categories among Roman (Gypsy) Communities of Western Turkey"
Honorable Mention to: Amy Frishkey (UCLA), "The Sacralization of the Soprano: Negotiated Realities in the Symbolic Mode"
2001
Christi-Anne Castro (UCLA), "Dularawan: Composing the Philippine Nation"
2002
Tom Grunland (UCSB), "Makin' the Bucks and Wearin' the Tux: Issues of Transience, Tourism, and Transnationalism in the Lives of Cruise Ship Musicians"
Honorable Mention to: Gibb Schreffler (UCSB), "Hear No, See No, Speak No Bhangra"
2003
Angela Rodel (UCLA), "Extreme Noise Terror: Punk Rock and the Aesthetics of Badness"
Honorable Mention to: Kenneth S. Habib (UCSB), "Fairuz in (Arab-) America: Making Music and Locating Home"
2004
Christine Zanfagna (UCLA), "Soul Train, Unchained: Locating the 'Spirit' in Hip Hop"
Honorable Mention to: William Robert Hodges (UCSB), "'Come On, Grieve With Me Now': Referencing, Reframing, and (Re)presenting Grief through Pop Laments in Toba Batak (North Sumatra, Indonesia)"
2005
Katherine Meizel (UCSB), "Be a Fan, Not a Hater: Identity Politics and the Audience in American Idol"
2006
Denise Regina Gill (UCSB), "Performing Mesk: Negotiating the Historical Composition(s) of Being in Turkish Classical Music"
2007
Lillie S. Gordon (UCSB), "'We will be serving tea and ta miyya': the discursive formation of a music venue in Cairo"
Honorable Mention to: Barbara Taylor (UCSB), "The Banjo: In, But Not Of America"
2008
Jake Rekedal (UCR), "Bluegrass, Counterculture, and Postmodern Hillbillies"
Honorable Mention to: Sonja Lynn Downing (UCSB), "Fieldwork Methods for Doing Research with Children and Music in Bali"
2009
Christina Zanfagna (UCLA), “Geographies of Conversion: Holy Hip Hop and the Changing Body of the City”
2010
Catherine Appert (UCLA). “Hybridity in African Popular Music”
Honorable Mention to: Joshua Brown (UCR), “Real Encounters with Imagined Communities at the Ash Grove”
2011
Jason Busniewski (UCSB), “Fascination and Cultural Fermentation in Early British India”
2012
Ben Fairfield (University of Hawai’i at Manoa), “I am Tehnaku: The Reification and Textuality of Suwichan’s Karen Harp”
Honorable Mention to: Charlotte D'Evelyn (University of Hawai’i at Manoa), “Music Between Worlds: Transnational Flows and Local Revivals in Inner Mongolia, China”
2013
Dave Wilson (UCLA), “Singing for Macedonia: Glocalization and National Identity Construction in Macedonian Idol”
Honorable Mention to: Jeremiah S. French (University Hawai’i at Manoa), “The Eclectic Multicultural Approach in Post-Apocalyptic Videogame Soundtracks”
2014
Philip Murphy (UCSB), “Annihilation in God, or Just a Party: Local Circulations of Sufi Ritual and Performance in Fez, Morocco”
Honorable Mention to: Scott Linford (UCLA), “La Familia Mejia Godoy: Generational Strategies of Musical Nationalism in Nicaragua”
2015
Max Jack (UCSB), “'You Call This Democracy?' FC Saint Pauli Supporters, Chants, and the Police”
2016
Deonte Harris (UCLA), “'Revelry or Revolution?: Masquerading the 'Black Radical Tradition' at London’s Notting Hill Carnival”
2017
Nana Kaneko (UCR), “Reconstituting Communities: Localized Folk Performing Arts and Matsuri Festivals in Post-3.11 Tohoku, Japan”
Honorable Mentions to:
Alyssa Mathias (UCLA), “Cosmopolitans in the Midst of Conflict: Three Versions of a Folk song from Syria, Turkey, and Armenia”
Eric Schmidt (UCLA), “The Reckoning of Value in the Global Circulation of Sahel-Saharan Music”
2018
Stephanie Choi (UCSB), “‘I Became Your Fan for My Own Pleasure’: Claiming Hegemonic Femininity in K-pop”
Tyler Yamin (UCR), “Creativity and Contestation in the Canopy: Reflections on the Material-Discursive Boundaries of Gibbon Song”
2019
Mehrenegar Rostami (UCLA), "The International Fajr Music Festival: Musical Propaganda, Politics of Participation, and Musical Resistance”
Kirie Stromberg (UCLA), "Music Archaeology in China"
2020
Daniel K. Oshiro (UCSB), "Memeing Race: Mediations, Racial Formation, and The Laboring Body”
Honorable mention to: Mariangela Nobre (UCR), "Samba: The Brazilian Utopia"
2021
Allan Zheng (UCR), "Pain and the Bodily Archive: The Transmission of Cambodian Pinpeat Music”
2022
Cheuk Ling Cherrie Yu (UCSD), "Anime Idol Rhythm Game: Managing Attention with Rhythmic Performance”
2023
Eloy Neira de la Cadena (UCR), "Yanaruna: An Afro-Indigenous Peruvian Aesthetico-Political Proposal”
Honorable mention to: Chun Chia Tai (UCR), "Triangulating the Taiwanese Spirit in Southern California: Colonial Hauntings at the 228 Commemorative Concert"
2024
TBA