Prizes & Awards
The Distinguished Service Award
Award Amount
$1,500
2026 Nomination Deadline
June 1, 2026
Award Overview
The Conference on Latin American History Award for Distinguished Service to the profession was established in 1969 by the General Committee and approved in 1971. The following guidelines are based upon the relevant CLAH By-Laws. Requirements of the Award: The award shall be conferred upon a person whose career in scholarship, teaching, publishing, librarianship, institutional development or other fields demonstrates significant contributions to the advancement of the study of Latin American history in the United States.
The CLAH welcomes nominations for the 2026 Distinguished Service Award. The award of $1,500 is conferred upon a person whose career in scholarship, teaching, publishing, librarianship, institutional development or other fields demonstrates significant contributions to the advancement of the study of the Caribbean and Latin American history in the United States.
A nomination will consist of a cover letter and up to five letters of support that speak to the qualifications of the nominee. Nominations will be considered for three consecutive years; an unsuccessful nomination will automatically be considered the following year, and (if applicable) the year after that.
Nominators should collect all support letters and send the complete nomination to the three members of the Distinguished Service Award Committee listed below with the subject line “LastName – Distinguished Service Award.” The file name for the nomination packet should be “LastName_DistinguishedServiceAward.”
Note: The CLAH requires current membership for all of its prizes and awards.
Distinguished Service Award Committee for 2026:
2025 George Reid Andrews, University of Pittsburgh
2024 Gilbert Joseph, Yale University
2023 John Coatsworth, Columbia University
2022 Barbara Weinstein, New York University
2021 Rebecca Scott, University of Michigan
2020 Thomas Holloway, University of California, Davis
2019 Donna Guy, Ohio State University
2018 Steve J. Stern, University of Wisconsin–Madison
2017 Eric Van Young, University of California, San Diego
2016 Mary Kay Vaughan, University of Maryland
2015 Herbert Klein, Stanford University
2014 Lyman Johnson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
2013 Valerie Millholland, Senior Editor with Duke University Press
2012 Susan Socolow, Emory University
2011 Paul Vanderwood, San Diego State University
2010 Richard Graham, University of Texas at Austin
2009 Friedrich Katz, University of Chicago
2008 Asunción Lavrin, Arizona State University
2007 William Taylor, University of California, Berkeley
2006 Georgette Dorn, Library of Congress
2005 Charles Hale, University of Iowa
2004 James Lockhart, University of California, Los Angeles
2003 Thomas Skidmore, Brown University
2002 Ralph Lee Woodward, Texas Christian University
2001 Michael C. Meyer, University of Arizona
2000 Emilia Viotti da Costa, Yale University
1999 Dauril Alden, University of Washington
1998 Richard Greenleaf, Tulane University
1997 John Lynch, University of London
1996 David Bushnell, University of Florida
1995 John Jay TePaske, Duke University
1994 Tulio Halperin-Donghi, University of California, Berkeley
1993 E. Bradford Burns, University of California, Los Angeles
1992 Magnus Mörner
1991 Stanley Stein, Princeton University
1990 Ursula Lamb
1989 William Griffith
1987 Co-Awards: John J. Johnson, Stanford University
Charles R. Boxer, Yale University
1985 Benjamin Keen, Northern Illinois University
1983 Irving Leonard, University of Michigan
1981 Charles Gibson, University of Michigan
1979 Woodrow W. Borah, University of California, Berkeley
1977 Arthur P. Whitaker, University of Pennsylvania
1975 Nettie Lee Benson, University of Texas at Austin
1973 Lewis Hanke, University of Massachusetts
1971 Howard F. Cline, Library of Congress
1970 Charles Griffin