The Outstanding Graduate Student Awards are presented to one MS and one Ph.D. student that has academic excellence and also provides service to their fellow graduate students and the Department. The recognition is in the form of a permanent plaque engraved with the name of the recipient and a small monetary award. Previously, this award was called the Kunkle Award after L.E. Kunkle.
| Year | MS | PH.D. | |||
| 2020 | Nicole Lorig & Nikki Hardy | ||||
| 2021 | Haley Zynda | Joonbum Lee | |||
| 2022 | Paige Doklovic | Kirsten Nickles | |||
| 2023 | Caleb Rykaczewski | Nicole Lorig | |||
| 2024 | Yifei (Nicole) Wang | ||||
The following students have received the Kunkle Award.
| 1975 | Keith Irvin | 2003 | Christopher R. Burke |
| 1976 | Husnu Yusuf Gokalp | 2004 | Claudio Ribeiro |
| 1977 | Richard D. Cassidy | 2005 | John Sylvester |
| 1978 | William H. Mast | 2006 | Milton Gorocica |
| 1979 | Edward W. Mills | 2007 | Michael Scott Updike |
| 1980 | Johnathan Goodson | 2008 | Daniel Poole |
| 1981 | Richard G. Shield, Jr. | 2009 | Amy Radunz |
| 1982 | Carol S Pierson | 2010 | Tara Felix |
| 1982 | Diane M. Sharkey | 2011 | Sara Crawford |
| 1983 | Darrell L. Wilkes | 2012 | Matthew Utt |
| 1984 | Daniel L. Uher | 2013 | Michael Cressman |
| 1984 | Debra A. Knight | 2014 | Jessica Pempek |
| 1985 | Paul F. Maxson | 2015 | Bo Harstine |
| 1986 | Glenn A. Peterson | 2016 | Matthew Faulkner |
| 1987 | Cheryl D. Spencer | 2017 | Stephanie Hutsko |
| 1988 | Michael Bishop | 2018 | Jerad Jaborek |
| 1989 | David M Greene | 2019 | Alex Tebbe |
| 1990 | Elizabeth A. Newton | ||
| 1991 | Ricardo Rodriquez | ||
| 1991 | Norma Pensel | ||
| 1992 | Stanton L. Boyce | ||
| 1993 | Francis Fluharty | ||
| 1994 | Pero Dimsoski | ||
| 1995 | David Stick | ||
| 1996 | Les Anderson | ||
| 1997 | Stacy Kacierk | ||
| 1998 | Bradley S. Oldick | ||