Past Award Winners

Screen capture from the 2020 National Communication Association Awards Ceremony [held virtually due to COVID-19]

2019 Award Winners, left to right: Phaedra C. Pezzulo, Catalina de Onís, LeiLani Nishime, Constance Gordon, Katie Hunt, Carlos Tarin.

Archive of Award Winners

Tarla Rai Peterson Book Award in Environmental Communication (Formerly the Christine L. Oravec Research Award in Environmental Communication - book category)

2024, Phaedra C. Pezzullo, Beyond Straw Men: Plastic Pollution and Networked Cultures of Care (University of California Press, 2023)
2023, Jenell Johnson, Every Living Thing: The Politics of Life in Common. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2023
2021, Catalina M. de Onís, Energy Islands: Metaphors of Power, Extractivism, and Justice in Puerto Rico (University of California Press, 2021)
2020, Tema Milstein and José Castro-Sotomayor (editors), Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity (Routledge, 2020)
2019, Leilani Nishime & Kim D. Hester Williams (editors), Racial Ecologies (University of Washington Press, 2018)
2018, Bridie McGreavy, Justine Wells, George F. McHendry Jr., & Samantha Senda-Cook, Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life: Ecological Approaches (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
2017, Tema Milstein, Mairi Pileggi, and Eric Morgan, Environmental Communication Pedagogy and Practice" (Routledge, 2017)
2016, Schnieder, J., Schwarze, S., Bsumek, P., and Peeples, J. (2016). Under pressure: Coal industry rhetoric and neoliberalism (London: Palgrave MacMillan UK, 2016).
2015, Myria Allen, Strategic Communication for Sustainable Organizations: Theory and Practice (Springer, 2015)
2014, Anna Marie Todd, Communicating Environmental Patriotism: A Rhetorical History of the American Environmental Movement (Routledge, 2013)
2013, Emily Plec, Perspectives on Human-Animal Communication: Internatural Communication (Routledge, 2012)
2011, Brendan Larson, Metaphors for environmental sustainability: Redefining our relationship with nature (Yale University Press, 2011)
2010, Danielle Endres, Leah Sprain, and Tarla Rai Peterson, Social Movement to Address Climate Change (Cambria, 2009)
2008, Bryan Taylor, Stephen Depoe, William Kinsella, and Maribeth Metzler, Nuclear Legacies: Communication, controversy, and the U.S. nuclear weapons complex (Lexington Books, 2007)
2007, Phaedra Pezzullo, Toxic Tourism: Rhetorics of pollution, travel, and environmental justice (University of Alabama Press, 2007)
2006, Robert Cox, Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere (SAGE, 2006)

Christine L. Oravec Research Award in Environmental Communication (journal manuscript)

2024, S. Marek Muller, David Rooney, and Cecilia Cerja. “Long Live the Liver King: Right-wing Carnivorism and the digital Dissemination of Primal Rhetoric,” published in Frontiers in Communication in 2024. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2024.1338653
2023, Samantha Senda-Cook & Emma Frances Bloomfield, “Building Coalitions from Shared Pieties: Polyvocal Religious Environmentalism at the Asian Rural Institute,”Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, (2023). 56-78. DOI:10.1558/jsrnc.20381
2022, Denise Tillery & Emma Frances Bloomfield, "Hyperrationality and Rhetorical Constellations in Digital Climate Change Denial: A MultiMethodological Analysis of the Discourse of Watts Up With That," Technical Communication Quarterly 31:4 (2022), 356-373.
2021, Sarah De Los Santos Upton, Carlos A. Tarin & Leandra H. Hernández, "Construyendo Conexiones Para Los Niños: Environmental Justice, Reproductive Feminicidio, and Coalitional Possibility in the Borderlands," Health Communication 37:9 (2022), 1242-1252.
2020, José Castro-Sotomayor, "Emplacing Climate Change: Civic Action at the Margins," Frontiers in Science and Environmental Communication 33:4 (2019), 1-14.
2019, Constance Gordon & Katie Hunt, "Reform, Justice, and Sovereignty: A Food Systems Agenda for Environmental Communication," Environmental Communication 13:1 (2018), 9-22.
2018, [not given]
2017, Tema Milstein, "The Performer Metaphor: 'Mother Nature Never Gives Us the Same Show Twice," Environmental Communication 10:1 (2016), 104-121.
2016, Bridie McGreavy, "Resilience as Discourse", Environmental Communication 10:1 (2016), 104-121.
2015, William Kinsella, Dorothy Andreas, and Danielle Endres (2015) “Communicating Nuclear Power: a Programmatic Review”, Communication Yearbook 39, 277-310.
2014, Bsumek, P., Schnider, J., Schwarz, S., and Peeples, J. (2014). Corporate Ventriloquism: Corporate advocacy, the coal industry, and the appropriation of voice (21-43). In Jennifer Peeples and Steven Depoe (Eds.). Environmental Communication and Voice. London: Palgrave MacMillan UK.
2013, Donal Carbaugh and Tovar Cerulli (2013), “Cultural Discourses of Dwelling: Investigating Environmental Communication as a Place-Based Practice”, Environmental Communication 7(1), 4-23.
2012, Jennifer Peeples (2013), “Toxic sublime: Imagining contaminated landscapes”, Environmental Communication 5 (4), 373-392
2011, Michael Salvador and Tracylee Clarke (2010), “The Weyekin Principle: Toward an embodied critical rhetoric”, Environmental Communication 5(34), 243-260.
2010, (Norie) Ross Singer (2010), “Neoliberal style, the American re-generation, and ecological jeremiad in Thomas Friedman’s ‘Code Green’”, Environmental Communication 4(2), 135-151.
2009, Tema Milstein, “When Wales ‘speak for themselves’: Communication as a mediating force in wildlife tourism”, Environmental Communication 2(2), 173-192.
2008, Chris Russill, "Tipping point forewarnings in climate change communication: Some implications of an emerging trend", Environmental Communication 2(2), 133–153.
2007, Steven Schwarze, "Environmental Melodrama", Quarterly Journal of Speech 92(3), 239-261.
2006, Bryan Taylor, William Kinsella, Stephen P. Depoe, Maribeth Metzler, "Nuclear Legacies: Communication, Controversy, and the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Production Complex", Communication Yearbook 29, 363-409.

Stephen P. Depoe Book Chapter Award in Environmental Communication

2024, not awarded.
2023, Andrea M. Feldpausch-Parker and Danielle Endres, “Energy Democracy: An introduction,” In Andrea M. Feldpausch-Parker, Danielle Endres, Tarla Rai Peterson and Stephanie L. Gomez Eds., Routledge Handbook of Energy Democracy. New York, NY: Routledge, 2022, pp. 1-14.
2021, Xinghua Li, “Selling the ‘Wild’ in China: Ancient Values, Consumer Desires, and the Quyeba Advertising Campaign"
2020, Kelsey Husnick, Mostafa Aniss, and Rahul Mitra, “Naturalizing Environmental Injustice: How Privileged Residents Make Sense of Detroit's Water Shutoffs," in Casey R. Schmitt, Christopher S. Thomas, and Theresa R. Castor, Eds., Water, Rhetoric and Social Justice: A Critical Confluence (Lexington, 2020), 149-170.
2019, Carlos A. Tarin, "Fronteras Tóxicas: Toward a Borderland Ecological Consciousness," in Leandra Hinojosa Hernández and Robert Gutierrez-Perez, Eds., This Bridge We Call Communication: Anzaldúan Approaches to Theory, Method, and Praxis (Lexington, 2019), 31-50.
2018, [not given]
2017, Danielle Endres, Brian Cozen, Joshua Trey Barnett, Megan O'byrne, and Tarla Rai Peterson, "Communicating Energy in a Climate (of) Crisis," in Elisia L. Cohen, Ed. Communication Yearbook 40 (Routledge, 2016), 445-474.

J. Robert Cox Award in Environmental Communication and Civic Engagement

2024, Mark Terry, York University
2023, Maria Blevins, Utah Valley University
2021, Stacey K. Sowards
2020, Tarla Rai Peterson
2019, Phaedra C. Pezzullo
2018, Gregg Walker
2017, James G. Cantrill
2016, Jonathan Gray
2015, Leah Sprain
2014, Pete Bsumek
2013, Stephen Depoe
2012, Susan Senecah

Catalina de Onís Dissertation Award

2024, Christine Gilbert, “Extending the Climate Change Risk Perception Model in the United States: First-Person and Third-Person Effects”
2023, Cindy P. Rosenfeld, Vulnerable Flourishings: Building More-Than-Human Worlds with Digital Rhetoric. North Carolina State University (Dir. Victoria Gallagher)
2021, Taylor N. Johnson, "The Fight for Bears Ears: Toward a Decolonial Rhetoric of Public Participation in Environmental Decision-Making"
2020, Melissa Parks, “From Redwoods Preservation to Genomic Restoration: Genocentric Ecologies in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries"
2019, Constance Gordon, “Troubling ‘Access’: Rhetorical Cartographies of Food (In)Justice and Gentrification,” University of Colorado Boulder (Dir. Phaedra C. Pezzullo)
2018, Abel Gustafson, "The Nature and Effects of Uncertainty Frames in Science Communication," University of California Santa Barbara (Dir. Ronald E. Rice)
2017, Catalina de Onís, "Energy Remix: Decolonial Discourses of Decarbonization," Indiana University (Dir. Phaedra C. Pezzullo)

Top Student Paper Award

2024, Ebenzer Ato Kwamena Aidoo, Patrick Owusus Ansah, Frederick Daoyenike, and Maame Ana Afful, “Media Framing of Illegal Mining in Ghana: A Quantitative Content Analysis”
2023, David Rooney, "They Want to Kill Our Cows. That Means You're Next: White Masculine Victimhood and the Green New Deal's War on Hamburgers"
2021, Isabel Villanueva, Austen Saunders, and Sarah Buechner-, “Moral Foundations Theory and Nuclear Energy: The Complementary Roles of Elaboration and Emotional Activation in Social Media Sharing Intentions”
2020, Joshua Smith & Jordan Christiansen, “Bears Ears & the Inter-Tribal Coalition: Ecological Decolonial Rhetorics for Collaborative Land Management”
2019, Jacob Miller, "Surviving the Anthropocene Calls for an Ecospheric Rhetoric"
2018, Kevin Calderwood, "Going Global: Climate Change Discourse in Presidential Communications"
2017, S. Marek Muller, "Where the Buffalo Roam(ed): Frontier Yearnings and the 'Last Big Buffalo Hunt' of 1926"
2016, Joshua Trey Barnett, "Ecological Thanatorhetorics: Death and Environmentalism"
2015, Piper Corp, “Surviving evolution with rhetoric: Tapping the resources of Burke’s symbol-using animal in a Latourian world”
2014, Kathleen de Onis, “Eco-delinking: Extracting natural gas advocacy rhetoric and exploring its implications for Puerto Rico and beyond”
2013, Casey R. Schmitt, “If a Text Falls in the Woods…: Intertextuality, Environmental Perception, and the Non-Authored Text”
2012, Deborah Cox Callister, “Humor as Rhetorical Strategy: Comic and Melodramatic Frames in Environmental Coalition Building”
2011, Patrick Belanger, “Defending the Fort: Michael Crichton, Pulp Fiction, and Green Conspiracy”
2010, Keally DeWitt, “The (priestly) voice of the scientist in the climate change debate: A rhetorical analysis of Dr. James Hansen’s ‘Global Warming Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near’”

Top Paper Award

2023, Joshua T. Barnett, "Troubling Rhetorical Ecologies of Violent Care: Thinking With Invasive Species"
2021, Brian Cozen & Danielle E. Endres, “The Nuclear Zelus: Climate-Oriented Imaginaries Among Nuclear Energy Professionals”
2020, Megan O’Byrne & Danielle Endres, “This Land is Our Land: Protesting to Protect Places on the Margin”
2019, Haoran Chu and Janet Yang, "Emotion and the Psychological Distance of Climate"
2018, Ross Singer, "On Ecofeminist Theory and the Promise of Ecofeminist Communication Studies"
2017, Stephanie Marek Muller, "Where the Buffalo Roam(ed): Frontier Yearnings and the 'Last Big Buffalo Hunt' of 1926"
2016, Abel Gustafson and Ronald Rice, "Reducing the Uncertainty and Controversy about Uncertainty and Controversy Framing in Research on Climate Change Journalism"
2015, Jessica Thompson and Jose Aburto, “Ecosystem-what? Public understanding and trust in conservation science and ecosystem services”
2014, Jen Schneider, Steven Schwarze, Peter Bsumek, and Jennifer Peeples, “The strategic ambiguity of clean coal rhetoric”
2013, Teresa Myers, John Kotcher, Neil Stenhouse, Ashley Anderson, and Edward W. Maibach, “Predictors of Trust in the General and Climate Scientific Research of US Federal Scientific Organizations”
2012, Mahuya Pal and J. Jacob Jenkins, “Reimagining sustainability: An interrogation of the Corporate Knights’ Global 100”
2011, Anne Marie Todd, “Toward a Theory of Environmental Patriotism”
2010, Norie Singer, “The USDA People’s Garden Initiative and the rhetorical suppression of environmental and agro-food industry sustainability”

Outstanding Voice in Environmental Communication

2021, [not given]
2020, [not given]
2019, Catalina de Onís