CFI is delighted to announce that the 2027 CFI Awards nominations are now open! We are excited to recognize people celebrating, advocating for, and centering fat people and fat liberation. Keep reading for more information about the awards and how to nominate!
- Cat Pausé Research & Scholarship Award: Named after late Fat Studies scholar Cat Pausé, this award goes to research and scholarship centering the experiences of fat people, furthering the liberation of fat people, and/or addressing the intersections of fatness with other identities. Research and scholarship can take on different forms, and CFI would love to highlight both traditionally published research and celebrate those that use different modalities to share scholarship, like podcasts, blog posts, video essays, etc.
- Fat Liberation Advocacy Award: This award recognizes someone that advocates for fat liberation in their communities, such as on campus, in their departments, in their workplace, etc. Advocacy can look like pushing for new policies, procedures, and practices to support fat students, faculty, and staff, and includes creating intentional affinity spaces for fat people. Non-fat allies can also be recognized for this award.
- Fat, Loud, & Proud Award: This award is exclusively for recognizing fat people. The Fat, Loud & Proud Award recognizes fat people that embody fat liberation in their practice. This may look like information and resource sharing, hosting fat-specific programming, showcasing fat joy, and content creation.
- Fat Inclusivity Award: This award recognizes an individual, group, and/or office that led the best fat inclusive program, event, or initiative.
- Emerging Leadership Award: The Emerging Leadership Award recognizes a graduate student or new professional who centers fat liberation in their work. This may look like creating space for fat people to be in community; centering fatness in research, scholarship, dissertations, theses, etc.; promoting fat liberation on social media; and teaching about fat liberation in trainings, the classroom, presentations, etc.
Submit a nomination here: https://bit.ly/CFI2027Awards
Deadline: December 6, 2026
Anyone can nominate! We welcome self-nominations and nominations of others.
This coalition exists because of fat people who lead, imagine, organize, and care. Let’s uplift that work and make it visible. If you have questions or want support with your nomination, reach out to us at cfi@myacpa.org!
