NAPPN Awards Application Guidelines

Nominations for NAPPN 2024 are OPEN


Nomination Guidelines

Note: Nominees for any award must be active NAPPN members. If you are not already a member, learn more about joining here.

The awards ceremony is held each year at the NAPPN Annual Conference.

DEADLINE: December 15th, 2023


The Early Career and Graduate Student Award

The Early Career Award recognizes an early career scientist making important contributions to plant phenotyping in areas of data analytics, engineering, modeling, physiology, plant breeding, plant sciences, remote sensing, or allied related disciplines. We seek to highlight leaders in novel research, increasing the visibility of plant phenotyping (peer-reviewed publications, presentations, social media, popular press, service), supporting research between public and private sectors, developing (or following) data standard best management practices, and/or transdisciplinary engagement, consistent with NAPPN's mission.

Eligibility: The nominee must have obtained their Ph.D. within the last 10 years (after January, 1st of the calendar award year, after January 1st 2014 for this year’s award).

The Graduate Student Award recognizes a graduate student making important contributions to plant phenotyping in areas of data analytics, engineering, modeling, physiology, plant breeding, plant sciences, remote sensing, or allied related disciplines. We seek to highlight potential leaders in novel research, increasing the visibility of plant phenotyping (peer-reviewed publications, presentations, social media, popular press, service), supporting research between public and private sectors, developing (or following) data standard best management practices, and/or transdisciplinary engagement, consistent with NAPPN's mission.

Eligibility The nominee must be currently enrolled in a graduate program or have graduated with a M.Sc. or Ph.D. within the last year (after January, 1st, of the previous calendar year, after January 1st 2023 for this year’s award).

NOMINATION PACKAGE: (Submitted as a single PDF file, less-than 99Mb)

☞ Nominations for candidates from underrepresented groups are especially encouraged.

  1. Nomination Letter
    (minimum requirements listed below, 2-page limit, minimum 12-point font)

    • Contact information of nominator and nominee

    • Relationship of the nominator to the nominee

    • Nominee's overall professional accomplishments and current activities

    • How nominees activities support plant phenotyping

    • How nominees activities contribute to the mission of NAPPN

  2. Nominee's curriculum vitae / resume / biosketch
    (minimum requirements listed below, 2-page limit and up to 2 additional pages of publications with standard formatting)

    • Name, title, employer, work address

    • Social media account information (only if relevant to increasing visibility, with brief explanation) / website URL

    • Professional preparation: degrees, institutions, and dates

    • Significant professional history: Job titles, employers, places, and dates

    • Significant publications: Include all relevant refereed and non-refereed

    • Significant service work / synergistic activities / broader impacts

    • Significant grants, awards, and honors

    • Patents, intellectual property

  3. Letters of support

    • Each nomination should include 2-3 signed letters of support submitted as PDF files, 1-2 pages each.

    • Each letter should highlight activities that support aspects of the mission of NAPPN.

    • Each letter should include the author's email address and telephone number.


The Excellence in Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Award

The Excellence in Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Award recognizes an NAPPN member who has contributed significantly and over a sustained period to advancing EID values in plant phenotyping and/or within the NAPPN community.  Submit a letter of nomination that addresses how the nominee has demonstrated a significant commitment to enhancing equity, diversity, and inclusivity in plant phenotyping through one or more of the listed criteria (see below). Additionally, the nomination letter should describe creative models, strategies or best practices used to enhance equity, diversity and inclusion in plant phenotyping.

CRITERIA
(The following list is meant to be illustrative only)

  • Developing innovative programs related to plant phenotyping to enhance equity, diversity and inclusion within an organization, department, unit or university.

  • Recruiting and retaining students, faculty, and staff in plant phenotyping (and related fields) from underrepresented groups.

  • Increasing the retention and graduation rates of students of plant phenotyping (and related fields) from underrepresented groups.

  • Providing mentoring/advising for students of plant phenotyping (and related fields) from underrepresented groups.

  • Providing mentoring for junior faculty and staff in plant phenotyping (and related fields) from underrepresented groups.

  • Developing and implementing learning activities that prepare students of plant phenotyping (and related fields) for a diverse and increasingly global society.

  • Integrating diversity into the curriculum.

  • Developing programs and activities in plant phenotyping (and related fields) that promote the development of multicultural understanding and cross-cultural competence.

  • Supporting plant phenotyping research, service and scholarship in the area of diversity and inclusion.

  • Providing opportunities for the professional development of faculty and staff from underrepresented groups in plant phenotyping (and related fields).

  • Developing activities in plant phenotyping (and related fields) that support partnerships with minority-serving institutions, visiting scholars and guest lecturers from underrepresented groups.

  • Implementing initiatives in plant phenotyping (and related fields) that create a supportive environment.

  • Maintains and advocates for policies/practices in plant phenotyping (and related fields) that support diversity at local, state, and national levels.

NOMINATION PACKAGE: (Submitted as a single PDF file, less than 99Mb) ⚠️

  1. Nomination Letter
    (minimum requirements listed below, 5-page limit, minimum 12-point font)

    • Contact information of nominator and nominee

    • Relationship of the nominator to the nominee

    • Describing in detail why the nominee is deserving of the award, including how nominees activities support plant phenotyping

    • Description of the activities within the academic calendar year that illustrates the outstanding efforts by the nominee to enhance diversity and inclusion (three-page limit).

  2. Nominee's curriculum vitae / resume / biosketch
    (minimum requirements listed below, 2-page limit)

    • Name, title, employer, work address

    • Social media account information (only if relevant to increasing visibility, with brief explanation) / website URL

    • Professional preparation: degrees, institutions, and dates

    • Significant professional history: Job titles, employers, places, and dates

    • Significant service work / synergistic activities / broader impacts

  3. Letters of support

    • Each nomination should include no more than five signed letters of support submitted as PDF files, 1-2 pages each.

    • Letters of Support (not more than five total) from colleagues, supervisors, advisees and trainees, staff, administrators, or community members who work extensively with the nominee both in roles that supervise and are supervised by the nominee.


The Industry Award

The Industry Award recognizes a scientist or engineer working in industry who is making important contributions to plant phenotyping in areas of data analytics, engineering, modeling, physiology, plant breeding, plant sciences, remote sensing, or allied related disciplines, engaging in technical excellence, synergistic activities and leadership, consistent with NAPPN's mission.

Criteria

The following list of criteria upon which the contestants will be judged is meant to be non-exclusive and illustrative only. If current position is not in industry, contestant will only be judged on contributions made while working in an industry position:

  • Technical Excellence

    • Product development (patents, software, etc.)

    • Actionable outcomes from novel phenotyping efforts - (breeding decisions; product selections/formulations; increases in revenue, profit, h2 or accuracy of selection from targeting phenotypes)

    • Increased adoption rates of developed systems or management practices, or technology

  • Synergistic Activities

    • Increasing the visibility of plant phenotyping (peer-reviewed publications, presentations, social media, popular press, service)

    • Supporting research between public and private sectors (collaborations with universities and research organizations)

    • Transdisciplinary engagement

  • Leadership

    • Developing (or following) data standard best management practices

    • Management, supervision and/or building of successful technical teams

    • Mentoring of individuals or groups

NOMINATION PACKAGE: (Submitted as a single PDF file, less than 99Mb) ⚠️

1. Nomination Letter (minimum requirements listed below, 2-page limit, minimum 12-point font)

  • Contact information of nominator and nominee

  • Relationship of the nominator to the nominee

  • Nominee's overall professional accomplishments and current activities

  • How nominees activities support plant phenotyping

  • How nominees activities contribute to the mission of NAPPN

2. Nominee's biosketch (minimum requirements listed below, 3-page limit)

  • Name, title, employer, work address

  • Evidence of impact in the areas of:

    • Technical excellence

    • Synergistic activities

    • Leadership

3. Letters of support

  • Each nomination should include 2-3 signed letters of support submitted as PDF files, 1-2 pages each.

  • Each letter should highlight activities that support aspects of the mission of NAPPN.

  • Each letter should include the author's email address and telephone number.


Post-award expectations

Notifications will occur in late January or early February. Award recipients will be recognized at the NAPPN Community Session with a trophy at the NAPPN Annual Meeting and will be asked to present at the following NAPPN Annual Meeting. Travel, lodging, and registration to the following meeting will be covered by NAPPN. After being notified of award selection, the award recipient should submit the following for use at the NAPPN Annual Meeting, for press releases and announcements.

  1. Professional sketch: 200-300 words about institutional affiliation and scope of previous and ongoing research (suitable for use in announcements)

  2. Digital images of Awardee: Two non-copyrighted, high-resolution digital images of the nominee in a common image format (e.g., jpg, tiff, png), including:
    [a] professional posed image and
    [b] action photo showing the awardee in their work.

Submit Nomination

  1. Please fill and submit the form below.

  2. After you have submitted the form you will need to send the nomination package (single PDF) to nappnet@gmail.com

  3. If acknowledgment of receipt is not received, please email or call Jeff Aguilar; Email: nappnet@gmail.com; Phone: +1 (404) 641-2545.

Selection team:
The NAPPN executive committee, representing diverse aspects of plant phenotyping, will score applicants.
In the event of a tie, the current NAPPN Chair's vote counts double.