The Terry Winograd Prize and the Eric Roberts Prize for Best Paper on Ethics & Technology

The McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society is excited to announce the winners of the two new annual prizes for the best undergraduate papers on ethics and tech. Manuka Stratta is the recipient of the Terry Winograd Prize and Ananya Karthik is the recipient of the Eric Roberts Prize. Congratulations to Manuka and Ananya! Read the winning essays.

The McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society has two new annual prizes for the best undergraduate paper on ethics and technology. The prizes are named after two renowned, foundational figures in the tech ethics field at Stanford — Professors emeriti Terry Winograd and Eric Roberts. Selected students will receive $500 each.

Faculty, TAs, staff, and advisors are invited to submit student essays that best elaborate research-based ethics evaluations of technology. Papers should be written for a class, project, or an honors thesis and not yet published in a journal. A winning paper will display lucid argumentation, precise definition of terms, careful consideration of scholarly and public debates, as well as counterarguments and a conclusion that considers the larger impacts of technology. All journal styles welcome from IEEE, ACM, APA, MLA, Chicago.

We are also open to considering extracurricular projects on ethics and tech in essay form such as longform journalism or Medium or Substack posts. These extra-curricular essays should demonstrate rigor in argumentation and consideration of debates and should be submitted by a mentor.

All submissions will be evaluated by a committee of Stanford faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and staff from the Technical Communications Program. The contest is open to all undergraduates.

Nomination

To nominate a student, please provide a brief nominating letter and the student’s paper or essay. The letter should describe “How does this paper distinguish itself from all the other excellent work your students submit? Please list at least three qualities.”

The application deadline has passed. Please check back for future announcements.