Through its awards, the Group on Educational Affairs (GEA) seeks to recognize and celebrate those individuals and teams who have made a significant contribution to medical education through their research and scholarship and their commitment and service to the field.
This page includes information about all national and regional GEA awards. It will be updated throughout the year as calls for award nominations open. Additional information about past award winners is available upon request from gea@aamc.org.
National Awards
Merrell Flair Award in Medical Education
This award honors an individual who has made a major contribution over a significant time period to the process, administration, or transmission of information regarding medical education in North America. The awardee must be or have been active in the GEA and have been recognized by peers for a leadership role in the field of medical education as well as in the GEA.
This call for nominations is open annually in the fall. It is currently closed.
M. Brownell Anderson Award
In the spirit of M. Brownell "Brownie" Anderson, MEd, this award recognizes an early-career medical educator from each GEA region who has demonstrated enthusiasm, passion, commitment, and creativity in the field of medical education. This award identifies and supports an emerging educator in their career trajectory in medical education and serves as an opportunity to recognize and validate their potential and talent in the field.
Each of the GEA regions solicits nominations and selects a regional awardee. From this pool, the GEA Steering Committee selects an outstanding upcoming educator to recognize nationally.
Self-nominations will be accepted. This call for nominations is open annually in the fall. It is currently closed.
Research in Medical Education (RIME) Awards
Each year, the RIME Program Planning Committee reviews the papers submitted through the open call for submissions and selects papers to receive the following awards.
New Investigator Award
To encourage submissions of research and review papers from individuals who have no prior involvement with RIME activities, a New Investigator Award is given each year to a first-time first author. If an author wishes to have their paper considered for this award, they must check the New Investigator box on the submission form.
2024 winner: Neera R. Jain, PhD, MS, for “We Need a Seismic Shift”: Disabled Student Perspectives on Disability Inclusion in U.S. Medical Education
Outstanding Research Award
An award for the best research paper is given each year.
2024 winners: Andrea Gingerich, ND, MMEd, PhD, Lorelei Lingard, PhD, Stefanie S. Sebok-Syer, PhD, et al. for “Praise in Public; Criticize in Private”: Unwritable Assessment Comments and the Performance Information That Resists Being Written
Trainee Award
To encourage submissions from trainees, including learners enrolled in graduate degree programs in health professions education (e.g., Master of Health Professions Education) or in education research fellowships (e.g., surgical education research fellowship), a Trainee Award is given each year.
2024 winner: Lynnea Mills, MD, for “When You’re in It, It Feels Like It’s Everything”: Medical Students’ Experience of Failure and Remediation in the United States and the Netherlands
Underrepresented in Medicine (URiM) Research Award
To encourage work from perspectives and authors who are underrepresented in the medical education literature, a URiM Award is given each year. URiM means those racial and ethnic populations that are underrepresented in the medical profession relative to their numbers in the general population.
2024 winner: Joshua Jauregui, MD, for You Get What You Reward: A Qualitative Study Exploring Medical Student Engagement in 2 Different Assessment Systems
NEGEA Awards
Spring Meeting Awards
The NEGEA recognizes excellent posters and oral abstract presentations in various categories during its spring meeting.
Leadership Awards
The NEGEA recognizes the important contributions of group members with its Distinguished Educator Award and Distinguished Service and Leadership Award.
SGEA Awards
Medical Education Scholarship Awards (MESA)
The SGEA recognizes excellent posters and oral abstract presentations in various categories during its spring meeting. To be eligible for this award, candidates must respond to the request for consideration so that their work may be pre-reviewed before the spring meeting. Those posters and presentations selected as finalists for each category (trainee, early career, mid-career, late career) will be reviewed, and the winners will be announced at the meeting. Each winner will also be honored at the meeting the following year.
Career Educator Award
The Career Educator Award is the SGEA’s highest recognition and most prestigious award. Nominations and self-nominations are accepted.
Candidates must show:
- Active participation in the SGEA organization and spring meeting for at least six of the past 10 consecutive years.
- Evidence of a sustained and compelling record of educational scholarship for at least the past five years.
- Evidence of ongoing educational leadership and significant involvement in enhancing educational programs at their academic institution.
- Evidence of collaboration with others at their academic institution and beyond to enhance teaching effectiveness, the quality of educational programs, professional development of self and others, and/or the advancement of educational scholarship.
- Evidence of strong professionalism values.
CGEA Awards
Spring Meeting Awards
The CGEA recognizes excellent posters and oral abstract presentations in various categories during its spring meeting.
Medical Education Laureate Award
The CGEA recognizes the important contributions of senior members of the group as well as individuals from all career levels. Individuals nominated for this award should exhibit one or more of the following contributions: significantly shaped the direction of the CGEA; provided high-caliber faculty development, mentoring, and/or guidance to young investigators in medical education; and/or made significant contributions to the spring meeting or to scholarship to advance medical education.
WGEA Awards
Spring Meeting Awards
The WGEA recognizes excellent posters and oral abstract presentations in various categories during its spring meeting.
Other AAMC Awards
The AAMC recognizes and celebrates the members of the community who are making significant advances in medical education, cutting-edge patient care, groundbreaking research, and outstanding community engagement, through its awards program.