Emerging Scholar Award
AYME is proud to honor and invest in graduate students who demonstrate exceptional potential to advance research and scholarship in the field of youth ministry by offering the prestigious Emerging Scholar Award.

Each year the AYME board will recognize up to two doctoral students whose research demonstrates exemplary scholarship. We will assist them in presenting their research at the annual AYME conference and submitting their work for publication in the Journal of Youth Ministry.

The award consists of:
⋅ An invitation to present their research at our annual conference
⋅ Free conference registration
⋅ AYME membership for the award year
Journal of Youth Ministry subscription for the award year
⋅ Two-nights free lodging at the conference hotel
⋅ Certificate of Merit presented during a conference plenary session
⋅ Acknowledgement printed in the following Spring issue of JYM

Qualifications of applicants for this award:
1. Currently enrolled as a full or part-time student in an accredited DMin, EdD, ThD, or PhD ministry/education related program at the time of application. May have graduated by the time of the conference.
2. Actively addressing issues relevant to youth, young adult, or family ministry in some aspect of their scholarly research.
3. Must have at least 3 years of youth, young adult, or family ministry experience, either volunteer or professional.
4. May not be a prior award recipient. No person can receive the award more than once. However, students may re-apply in the future if they are not selected as a recipient.

Application process:
Qualified candidates must submit the following items by July 1st of the applying year:
1. A letter of interest briefly summarizing your research and youth, young adult, or family ministry background.
2. Current CV or Resume (any format is acceptable)
3. Recommendation letter from a full-time faculty member of the student’s doctoral program.
4. A 200 word abstract of your research and your completed paper describing your research (under 15,000 words; do not submit your dissertation).
5. A signed statement of commitment to submit an article to the Journal of Youth Ministry (as per JYM standards) within one year of receiving the award. Requests may be made to the current President for an additional year extension, relative to the completion of the dissertation/research project.

Submission requirements:
Combine all of the required documents in the order listed above into ONE .pdf document. Email it as an attachment to Theresa O’Keefe no later than July 1.

Emerging Scholar Awardees
2017—Elizabeth Post (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School)
2018—Rowan Lewis (University of Divinity, AU)
2019—Nishanth Thomas (Talbot School of Theology)
2020—Lauren Cooke (Emery University)
2021—Ryan Hewett (Johnson University)
2022—Hyun Ae Lee (Talbot School of Theology)