Awards
SANS is pleased to recognize our members with five key awards each year.
SOCIETY AWARDS NOMINATION ARE NOW OPEN
2026 SANS Service Award
The Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS) is honored to launch a special recognition award. We invite nominations for the SANS Service Award, honoring individuals whose sustained and exceptional contributions have strengthened both the field of social and affective neuroscience and the SANS community.
This award celebrates those whose leadership, mentorship, and advocacy have advanced the science, broadened participation, and enhanced the infrastructure and visibility of our field.
The recipient will receive complimentary registration to the 2026 conference in San Diego, and a commemorative plaque presented during the conference.
SANS Service Award Nomination Process
- All nominations will be evaluated by a Committee Co-Chaired by President and Vice President.
- We invite nominations and self-nominations for this honor.
- Nominees should demonstrate:
- A sustained record of service (spanning multiple years) to the field and/or SANS
- Evidence of impact at the national or international level
- A commitment to advancing equity, inclusion, and mentorship
- Be an Active or recent SANS membership or a significant history of engagement with the society
- Outstanding nominees often demonstrate integration between elevating:
- The Field of Social and Affective Neuroscience — through efforts that expand scientific infrastructure, foster collaboration, promote education and outreach, advocate for research support, or enhance diversity and inclusion across the discipline.
- The Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS) — through sustained service that strengthens the society’s mission, supports its members, and promotes community building, mentorship, and engagement.
- The following materials should be submitted for consideration to :
- Nomination Letter (500 words maximum) describing the nominee’s contributions and impact on both SANS and the broader field.
- Curriculum Vitae or Resume highlighting relevant service activities.
- Up to Two Supporting Letters from individuals familiar with the nominee’s service contributions. Letters should explicitly address:
– The duration and scope of the nominee’s service
– Tangible evidence of impact (e.g., growth, participation, influence, innovation)
– How the nominee’s efforts have advanced the goals of SANS and the field
- Submit all nomination materials as a single PDF to:
- The successful candidate must attend the 2026 conference. The recipient will be notified prior to the SANS Annual Meeting, where the award will be formally presented with a formal citation and commemorative plaque.
- Nomination deadline: December 20th, 2025
- Decision will be announced: February 17, 2026
*Current members of the SANS Board of Directors are not eligible for nomination during their term of service.
2026 Distinguished Scholar Award
The Distinguished Scholar Award recognizes the broad scope and potentially integrative nature of scholarship in social and affective neuroscience. It honors a scholar who has made distinctively valuable research contributions across their career in areas by significantly advancing our understanding of the biological basis of social and affective processes or expanding the core of social and affective neuroscience discipline. The winner of this award will receive a $500 honorarium, complimentary registration to the 2026 conference in San Diego as well as an invitation to be our Distinguished Scholar Speaker at the conference.
Distinguished Scholar Nomination Process
- We invite nominations and self-nominations for this honor.
- The awardee is selected by a committee chaired by the President.
- The awardee must be an active member of the society.
- The awardee must attend the 2026 conference as they will be invited to give a 45-minute presentation.
- The deadline for the Distinguished Scholar Award is December 20, 2025
- The following materials should be submitted for consideration to
- At least three (3) articles that demonstrate their contribution to the larger academic community.
- A one-page (250 words max) statement specifying the nature and impact of the nominee’s contribution to the field, outlining their current research
- Candidate CV
- Decision will be announced: February 17, 2026
Kevin Ochsner
Columbia University, Dept of Psychology
2025 Distinguished Scholar Award Winner
Kevin Ochsner is Professor and former Chair of the Department of Psychology at Columbia University, where he directs the Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN) Lab and co-directs the Center for Brain, Mind and Society, whose mission is using behavioral and brain research to inform our understanding of societal issues. His lab has published more than 170 scientific articles and books, supported by funding from private and public institutions, including five different NIH Institutes. For this work, Kevin has received various awards including the APA New Investigator Award and the Young Investigator Award from the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. Kevin is one of six co-founders of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society and is a past president of the Society for Affective Science.
Past Winners
2024 – Mauricio Delgado
2023 – Matthew Lieberman
2022 – Eveline Crone
2021 – Uta & Chris Frith
2019 – Nancy Kanwisher
2018 – Betsy Murray
2017 – B.J. Casey
2016 – John Cacioppo
2015 – James J. Gross
2014 – Elizabeth Phelps
2013 – Ralph Adolphs
2026 Mid-Career Award
The Mid-Career Award recognizes a mid-stage investigator who has made significant contributions to Social and Affective Neuroscience in terms of outstanding scholarship and service to the field. The winner of the award will receive a $500 honorarium, complimentary registration to the 2026 conference in San Diego, and deliver a short presentation.
Mid Career Award Nomination Process
- Candidates will be evaluated by a committee chaired by the Past President
- To be eligible for the award, candidates must be an active member of the society
- Candidates must be within 14 years of completing their Ph.D. or 5 years post promotion with tenure (or equivalent) at the time of the nomination. * Up to 2 years delay is allowed if the nominee has experienced significant caregiving or medical or other hardship during the period in question
- The candidate must not yet be promoted to full professor (or equivalent).
- The deadline for the Mid Career Award is December 20, 2025
- The following materials should be submitted for consideration to
- A one-page cover letter that highlights the candidate’s eligibility, research program, service, and other accomplishments,
- Candidate’s CV,
- Three representative publications and
- Two letters of recommendation.
- The first three items should be combined into a single PDF and emailed to the email address above.
- The letters of recommendation should also be sent to with “Mid Career Award Nomination” and the name of the candidate in the subject line.
- The successful candidate must attend the 2026 conference and be prepared to give a 20-minute presentation
- Decision will be announced: February 17, 2026
Catherine Hartley
New York University
2025 Mid-Career Award Winner
Dr. Catherine Hartley is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University. She received her B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University and her PhD in Psychology from New York University. Her research focuses on characterizing how dynamic changes in brain circuits from childhood to adulthood influence the learning, memory, and decision-making processes that support goal-directed behavior. In this work, she uses a variety of methodological approaches including neuroimaging, psychophysiology, computational modeling, and ecological momentary assessment. A central goal of her research is to understand the adaptive benefits of how individuals learn and make decisions at different developmental stages, as well as how specific learning and decision-making biases contribute to vulnerability or resilience to psychopathology.
Past Winners
2024 – Luke Chang
2026 Early Career Award
The Early Career Award recognizes an early-stage investigator who has made significant contributions to Social and Affective Neuroscience terms of outstanding scholarship and service to the field. The winner of the award will receive a $500 honorarium and be invited to give a short talk at the SANS 2026 conference in San Diego.
Early Career Award Nomination Process
- Candidates will be evaluated by a committee comprised of the Past and Current President.
- To be eligible for the award, candidates must be an active member of the society
- Must be within 7 years of completing their Ph.D. OR within 5 years of starting a junior faculty position at the time of the nomination.
- *Up to 2 years delay is allowed if the nominee has experienced significant caregiving or medical or other hardship during the period in question
- The candidate must be untenured (or equivalent)
- The deadline for the Early Career Award is December 20, 2025
- The following materials should be submitted for consideration to
- a one-page cover letter that highlights the candidate’s eligibility, research program, service, and other accomplishments,
- the candidate’s CV,
- three representative publications and
- two letters of recommendation.
- The first three items should be combined into a single PDF and emailed to the email address above.
- The letters of recommendation should also be sent to with “Early Career Award Nomination” and the name of the candidate in the subject line.
- The successful candidate must attend the 2026 conference and be prepared to give a 20-minute presentation
- Decision will be announced: February 17, 2025
Mark Thornton
Dartmouth College
2025 Early Career Award Winner
Mark Thornton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College. He directs the Social Computation, Representation, and Prediction Laboratory (SCRAP Lab) and is a core faculty member of the Consortium for Interacting Minds. He received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Princeton University, and his Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard University. Thornton’s research focuses on understanding how the brain organizes social knowledge and how it uses this knowledge to predict the social world. He studies these topics using a combination of naturalistic and controlled experiments, functional neuroimaging, and computational methods.
Past Winners
2024 – Justin Minue Kim
2023 – Oriel FeldmanHall
2022 – Jon Freeman
2021 – Catherine Hartley
2020 – Emily Falk
2019 – Jamil Zaki
2018 – Leah Somerville
2026 Innovation Award
The SANS Innovation Award recognizes a particular article authored by a SANS member and published in a scholarly outlet that makes a contribution likely to generate the discovery of new hypotheses, new phenomena, or new ways of thinking about the discipline of Social and Affective Neuroscience. The award selection will focus on a contribution’s conceptual innovation and potential to motivate new research and further conceptual investigation. At least one of the authors must currently be a SANS member in good standing (at the time the selection occurs).
Innovation Award Nominations Process
- Nominations will be evaluated by a committee led by the Vice President and up to two Directors-at-Large.
- Applications are due by December 20, 2025.
- Finalists will be announced to the society prior to the annual meeting. At the beginning of the meeting, an electronic survey listing the finalists will be distributed. The winner will be determined through electronic voting.
- The award is intended for all authors of the nominated paper but must be accepted at the conference. At least one author — preferably the first author — must be present at the meeting.
- Current members of the executive committee are ineligible to receive the award. If a member of the award committee is an author on any nominated paper, they will recuse themselves and be replaced with another executive committee member.
- Nominations include the article and a 200-word statement specifying the nature and impact (or likely impact) of the article’s contribution sent to and include “Innovation Award Nomination” in the subject line
- Individuals may self-nominate or be nominated by others.
- Award Nomination Panel also reserves the right to nominate potential recipients for this award.
- Articles must have been published in 2024 or 2025.
- At least one of the authors must currently be a SANS member in good standing (at the time the selection occurs).
Note: it is the Article that wins, not an individual or group
Xiaoxue Gao et al.
2025 Innovation Award Winner
2025 – Xiaoxue Gao et al. The psychological, computational and neural foundations of indebtedness (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44286-9
Past Winners
2024 – Catalina Camacho et all. Large-scale encoding of emotion concepts becomes increasingly similar between individuals from childhood to adolescence (2023)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01358-9
2023 – Lin, C., Keles, U. & Adolphs, R. Four dimensions characterize attributions from faces using a representative set of English trait words. Nat Commun 12, 5168 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25500-y
2022 – Lockwood, P., Apps, M. & Chang, S.W.C (2020). Is There a ‘Social’ Brain? Implementations and Algorithms. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(10), 802-813. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.06.011
2021 – Dal Monte, O., Chu, C., Fagan, N.,and Chang, S (2020). Specialized medial prefrontal–amygdala coordination in other-regarding decision preference. Nature Neuroscience, 2020 April 23(4): 565-574.
2019 – FeldmanHall, O., Dunsmoor, J. E., Tompary, A., Hunter, L. E., Todorov, A., & Phelps, E. A. (2018). Stimulus generalization as a mechanism for learning to trust. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(7), E1690-E1697.
2018 – Parkinson, C., Kleinbaum, A.M. & Wheatley, T. (2017). Spontaneous neural encoding of social network position. Nature Human Behavior, 1(5), 0072.
2017 – Lockwood, Patricia L., Apps, M.A.J., Valton, V., Viding, E., Rosier, J.P. (2016). Neurocomputational mechanisms of prosocial learning and links to empathy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113, 9763-9768.
2017 – Stolier, Ryan M. & Freeman, J.B. Neural pattern similarity reveals the inherent intersection of social categories. Nature Neuroscience, 19, 795-797.
2016 – Jack, Rachael. E., , Garrod, O.G.B., Schyns, P.G. (2014) Dynamic facial expressions of emotion transmit an evolving hierarchy of signals over time. Current Biology, 24, 187-192.
2015 – Preston, Stephanie D. (2013). The origins of altruism in offspring care. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 1305-1341.
2014 – McKell Carter, R., Bowling, D. L., Reeck, C., & Huettel, S. A. (2012). A distinct role of the temporal-parietal junction in predicting socially guided decisions. Science, 337, 109-111.
2013 – Yarkoni, T., Poldrack, R. A., Nichols, T. E., Van Essen, D. C., & Wager, T. D. (2011). Large-scale automated synthesis of human functional neuroimaging data. Nature Methods, 8, 665-670.