Nutritional Research Achievement Award

Gathering Nominations
Nominations are gathered August-December each year. Any nomination received before the established deadline will be accepted for review of eligibility. Nominees will be notified of their nomination and asked to submit the required award materials, including the applicable criteria sheet, CV, personal statement, and letters of recommendation.

Eligibility Verification and Selection of Finalists
NSCA Headquarters will verify eligibility and confirm that minimum award requirements have been met. Headquarters will review and organize the Award Criteria Sheets, CVs, Personal Statements, and Letters of Recommendation for qualified nominees.

The Awards Subcommittee of the NSCA Research Committee will review all submitted materials and evaluate nominees using the Award Criteria Sheet, Personal Statement Criteria Scoresheet, and Letters of Recommendation. Following this review, the Awards Subcommittee will determine the top three nominees for the award. In the event of a tie, points accumulated on the Award Criteria Sheet will be used to finalize the top three nominees. The Awards Subcommittee will also verify that finalist candidates meet all award criteria through two independent reviews of each candidate.

Voting by Industry Leadership

1. The Chair of the Subcommittee will then provide the Personal Statements and CVs of each candidate to the entire RC, past award winners, and the individual that the award is named after for a vote of the top awardee (for each award). If a current member of the RC is nominated for an award, they will be recused from the voting process and all correspondence of that particular award but are still eligible for nomination and award. If a current member of the RC is also a past winner, they shall vote only as an RC member.
2. Voting will occur in a weighted manner with 40% contributed by past winners of the award and the individual that the award is named after and 60% weight given by RC members. As such, the total weight of the past winners and the individual that the award is named after (40%) will be divided by the number of past winners who agree to participate in the voting, and the resulting percent will contribute the weight of each past winner’s vote. Similarly, the total weight of the RC members (60%) will be divided by the number of Committee members (9), and the resulting percent (approximately 6.66%) will contribute the weight of each Committee member to the voting. The sum of the vote percentages from past winners, the individual that the award is named after, and Committee members will determine the award winner.
3. The chair of the Awards subcommittee will keep record of the entire voting process and will then forward the selected winners for each award to the BOD. If there is a tie, two names for the award will be forwarded to the BOD recommended for dual recipients at the sub-committee’s discretion.

Awardee Notification

1. The Subcommittee Chair will notify the Board of Directors of the selected recipient(s).
2. The NSCA Headquarters will notify the recipient of the award, send regret notifications, create a Press Release announcement of the winner, and verify attendance at the National Conference awards banquet.