Congratulations to the winners of awards at AFS 2024 in Columbus OH. 

Lifetime Achievement Award

Dr. Tom Potts, Baylor University

Dr. Tom Potts was one of the founding members of AFS in 1985 and was President of the Association in 1985/86 and again in 2023. Over the last four decades he has filled the role of President/Chairman of FPA in Denver, CO and Chair of CFP Board and much much more. His support for AFS over the entire 4 decades has been unwavering.  

Special Recognition Award

Dr. Inga Timmerman, University of North Florida

Dr. Inga Timmerman was the President of AFS between 2019 to 2022 and shepherded AFS through the challenging years of COVID and helped set AFS back on track with our first hybrid conference in 2023. This award recognizes her amazing contributions for this time.

2024 FSR - Stuart Michelson Memorial Award 

This award is in honour of Dr. Stuart Michelson who was the editor of FSR from 2008 until 2021. It is presented to the authors of the paper from the prior year that has received the most downloads, citations and recognition.

The Big Five Personality Traits (OCEAN) and Financial Planning:

A Narrative Review and Recommendations for Advisors

2024 Early Career Researcher Award Winners

This award is presented to an academic who received their PhD within the last 5 years and has made significant contributions to the profession of financial planning through contributions in research, teaching and volunteerism within AFS or other groups in the financial planning community.

2024 Best Paper Award Winners

For the 2024 conference we had over 70 unpublished research papers which underwent a double-blind peer review. During this process reviewers called out 11 papers for consideration as Best Papers. These 11 papers were then submitted to a second round of double-blind review by AFS and for a separate blind review round by CFP Board (see below). Special thanks to Morningstar Retirement and FP Canada for sponsoring monetary awards for the top two Best Papers.  

Best Paper Sponsored by Morningstar Retirement

Miranda Reiter, Kate Mielitz & Tanaka Chimbane

Addressing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Financial Planning Education 

Best Paper Sponsored by FP Canada

Tao Guo, Spencer Look

 Solving the Puzzle within the Annuity Puzzle:

Incorporating Irrevocability Aversion into Annuity Choice

AFS Special Best Papers

For 2024, all papers that included a co-author that was a current member of the Board for AFS were excluded from contention for monetary Best Paper consideration. In respect of other authors on these papers, AFS introduced this non-monetary award. This paper was the top scored excluded paper. 

Jia Qi, Yu Zhang & Swarn Chatterjee

Personality and Psychological Well-being:

The Moderation Effect of Financial Responsibility

CFP Board Selected Papers

A total of 27 of the 70 plus papers sent to AFS opted for dual consideration to CFP Board Connection Conference. CFP Board utilized the weightings from the AFS double-blind review and went through a fully blind additional evaluation of the papers to select these papers. All papers received complementary registrations to the CFP Board Connections Conference.

Best Paper & Travel Award

Kirsten MacDonald, Thomas Hendry, Karen Wildman, Mark Brimble

Expensive babysitters or trusted professionals? Financial advice and portfolio rebalancing in retirement savings

Best Paper & Travel Award

Vickie Bajtelsmit, Jennifer Coats

Key Factors for Financial Wellbeing

Best Paper

Ellana Loy, Kirsten MacDonald, Karen Wildman, Thomas Hendry, Mark Brimble

Can you communicate your worth? Exploring competence in articulating the value of financial advice to clients

Best Paper & Travel Award

Tanya Staples, Megan McCoy & Ashlyn Rollins-Koons

A Comprehensive Literature Review on Equity in Financial Planning:

Unpacking Gender Barriers and Advancing Women’s Participation in the CFP® Profession

2024 Poster Session Research Award

This years poster reception included 16 different research papers. Special thanks to Dalton Education for sponsoring the reception and the monetary award to the winning poster.

2024 Research Shark Tank

2024 was the introduction of a new "research shark tank", where researchers were allowed 5 minutes to "pitch" proposed future research that they feel is important to the profession. For this inaugural event there were no monetary awards. There were two levels of selection - the first by a judging panel with a structured scoring rubric and the send selected by the audience.

Judges Choice Award

Elisabeth Sinnewe

Peoples Choice Award

Shawn Brayman

Can ChatGPT pass the CFP Examinations?