Since 2015, the Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC) has awarded a graduate student paper prize in recognition of excellent work by rising scholars. In 2016 the prize was renamed in honor of the memory of David Hakken, for his pioneering work at the intersection of ethnography and cyberspace.
The prize is awarded to a paper that exemplifies innovative research at the intersection of anthropology and science and technology studies, demonstrating theoretical sophistication and an appreciation of the methodological challenges facing the anthropology of science and technology.
The winner of the prize will be recognized during the AAA meetings and is sponsored by the AAA’s General Anthropology Division. They will also receive written feedback from the Prize Committee’s review of their paper.
2026 Submission Guidelines
- Papers should be blinded, with the author’s name and any implicating citations removed.
- Papers should have numbered pages.
- Papers must be between 7,000 and 8,000 words, not including references.
- Papers must be unpublished and not yet submitted for publication.
- Papers must follow the guidelines for human subjects protocols as outlined by the American Anthropological Association and the author’s institution.
- Submissions must be written during graduate school by current graduate students or recent graduates (no earlier than Spring 2025).
The committee will be unable to consider any paper that does not follow these guidelines.
Submissions must be received using the online submission form by June 15, 2026 at midnight (Central US time) to be considered for this year’s prize. Any questions can be directed to CASTAC Co-Chair Ana Carolina de Assis Nunes at co-chairs@castac.org. The award will be presented at the CASTAC business meeting (date and time to be determined).
For more information about CASTAC, please browse our website. CASTAC also awards the Forsythe Prize, for the best book or series of published articles in the spirit of Diana Forsythe’s feminist anthropological research on work, science, or technology, including biomedicine. For more information on the Forsythe Prize, see the Forsythe Prize page.
2026 Prize Winners
Tiên-Dung Hà for “‘The Soul Never Ceases:’ Forensic Science, Spiritual Forces, and the Search for Vietnam’s War Dead”
This winning paper scrutinizes the search for Vietnam’s missing war dead, revealing how forensic DNA science and spiritual practice come together in families’ efforts to identify, recover, and care for the remains of loved ones lost during the Vietnam-American War. Drawing on 18 months of multi-sited ethnographic research in Vietnam and Europe, the author deftly follows bones from grave exhumations to forensic laboratories to family homes, revealing how scientific and spiritual modes of knowing become intertwined in the work of bringing the missing dead home. Rather than treating forensic science and tâm linh—a vital spiritual force connecting the living and the dead—as competing epistemologies, the paper convincingly argues how they operate as complementary infrastructures of care. The committee was particularly impressed by the paper’s rich and sensitively rendered ethnography, as well as its novel intervention that tactfully refuses easy oppositions between science and so-called superstition. By joining an emerging conversation that bridges STS with the anthropology of religion and spirituality, Hà offers a powerful account of forensic science itself as a form of care and demonstrates how bones and remains can be understood not simply as inert material but as sites where molecular, spiritual, familial, and national forms of belonging converge.
Junnan Mu for “‘Stylish AI’: Aesthetic Alignment and the Poetics of AI Annotation Work in Kenya”
This honorable mention paper examines how Kenyan youth experience and make sense of their work as data annotators in the global AI industry. Drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2023 and 2026 in Nairobi, Mu describes how her interlocutors understand AI work as “beautiful” and “stylish.” By examining the aspirational dimensions of AI work in Kenya, Mu complicates narratives centered solely on labor exploitation, showing how global tech inequalities become entangled with locally situated ideas of style, modernity, and self-making. The committee was particularly impressed by Mu’s sustained engagement with the field, which allowed her to trace an arc in the relationship between these workers and companies, as well as her careful attention to the intersection of style and AI. The paper offers a timely and original perspective on the rapidly expanding literature on labor and artificial intelligence.
Previous Prize Winners
2025
Paige Edmiston for “So Consistently Incompetent It Feels Purposeful”: The Strategic Inefficiency of Paperwork in the American Health System”
Julien Porquet (Hon. Mention) for “Training to See in Latent Space: Style Transfer Algorithms and the Political Economy of Perspectives”
2024
Timothy Y. Loh for “An Expanded Istifada: Cochlear Implants and Regulating Communication for Deaf Jordanians”
Aaron Su (Hon. Mention) for “The Dilemma of “Self-Sufficiency”: Indigenous Agriculture and the Limits of Scientific Collaboration in Settler-Colonial Taiwan”
2023
Matthew Raj Webb for “Compositing the Body: Ethics of Mediation Among Professional Photographic Retouchers”
Spencer Kaplan (Hon. Mention) for “Facing Blockchain’s Double Bind: Trustless Technologies and “IRL Friends” in Berlin’s NFT Community”
2022
Katie Ulrich for “Redesigning the Substance of Growth: Sugarcane, Biotech, and Sustainable Futures in São Paulo, Brazil”
Adam Fleischmann (Hon. Mention) for “Telecommuting and Remote (Field)work: A Reluctant Neologism for a Time of Climate Change”
2021
Rae Jezera for “I’m not this Person”: Racism, Content Moderators and Protecting and Denying Voice Online
Caroline White-Nockleby (Hon. Mention) for “A resource in and of itself” Grid-scale batteries and the politics of storage
2020
Liliana Gil for “A Fablab in the Periphery: Decentering Innovation from São Paulo”
Jia-Hui Lee (Hon. Mention) for “Rodent Trapping and the Imagination of the Just Possible in Tanzania”
2019
Alexandra Middleton for “The Datafication of Pain: Trials and Tribulations in Measuring Phantom Limb Pain.”
Stephen Paff (Hon. Mention) for “Anthropology by Data Science: The EPIC Project with Indicia Consulting as an Exploratory Case Study.”
2018
Timothy McLellan for “Comparing Theories of Change: The Temporal Transformation of Scientific Practice.”
Laura Meek (Hon. Mention) for “The Grammar of Leprosy: Temporal Politics and an Impossible Subject.”
2017
Nicole Welk-Joerger for “Achieving Eden in the Amish Anthropocene”
Héctor Beltran (Hon. Mention) for “Staging the Hackathon”
2016
Kellie Owens for “Too Much of A Good Thing?: American Childbirth, Intentional Ignorance, and the Boundaries of Responsible Knowledge.”
Shreeharsh Kelkar (Hon. Mention) for “Platformizing Pedagogy: MOOC Infrastructures and the Transformation of Roles.”
2015
Risa Cromer for “Saved: Stem Cell Science, Christian Adoption, and Frozen Embryo Politics in the United States.”
Beth Reddy (Hon. Mention) “Misfires and Missed Opportunities: Personal and Population-Oriented Technologies Interface to Disseminate Mexico’s Earthquake Early Warning System Alerts.”