Carper Award
According to various sources, which are directly quoted here, the Dr. N. Gordon Carper Lifetime Achievement Award was established in 1999 to honor individuals for meritorious services in sustaining and enriching collegiate academic competitions. It was the inspiration of former Georgia Tech luminary Al Whited, who modeled it on the Fermi Award, and current demographer Brian Rostron. The award is presented annually to a member of the quizbowl community who exhibits the kind of dedication to and long-term support of academic competitions as exemplified by career of Dr. Carper. The Carper Award, while sponsored by the Academic Competition Federation, is not limited to individuals with ACF affiliations.
Beginning in 2019, ACF empowered a committee of former Carper winners who are also ACF members to select a second winner. The purpose of this expansion was to make sure that people whose integral accomplishments in quizbowl were remote from ACF's current membership didn't fall through the cracks. [1] On this page, the ACF membership Carper awards are listed first and the committee awards are listed second.
Previous winners:
| Year | Membership award | Committee award |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Jordan Brownstein | Kyle Haddad-Fonda & Selene Koo |
| 2024 | Dr. John Lawrence | Dave Hamilton & Raj Bhan |
| 2023 | Dr. Edmund Dickinson | Joe Su |
| 2022 | Matt Jackson | Chris Borglum |
| 2021 | Matt Bollinger | Jim Dendy |
| 2020 | Alex Damisch | Mike Sorice |
| 2019 | Rob Carson | Kelly McKenzie |
| 2018 | Mike Bentley | |
| 2017 | Jonathan Magin | |
| 2016 | Andrew Hart | |
| 2015 | Dr. Jerry Vinokurov | |
| 2014 | Dr. Susan Ferrari | |
| 2013 | Matt Weiner | |
| 2012 | Jeff Hoppes | |
| 2011 | Dr. Seth Teitler | |
| 2010 | Subash Maddipoti | |
| 2009 | Ezequiel Berdichevsky | |
| 2008 | Chris Sewell | |
| 2007 | Andrew Yaphe | |
| 2006 | R. Robert Hentzel | |
| 2005 | Charlie Steinhice | |
| 2004 | Don Windham and Gaius Stern | |
| 2003 | Eric Hillemann | |
| 2002 | not presented | |
| 2001 | Dr. Robert Meredith | |
| 2000 | Dr. Carol Guthrie | |
| 1999 | Dr. N. Gordon Carper | |