A Wartburg College professor who has studied everything from the Obama presidency to fans of TV’s “Breaking Bad” has been named the 2014 William Stephenson Award winner.

Dr. Dan Thomas, political science professor, is only the fourth person to have received this honor in the International Society for the Scientific Study of Subjectivity’s 30-year history. The award honors those “with a lifetime commitment to Q methodology” and is the highest award offered by the interdisciplinary scholarly organization.

The award is named for William Stephenson, who invented the research method, which studies people’s viewpoints in 1935.

Thomas's research has appeared in a wide array of social science journals. While he has focused particularly on political subjectivity, his research also has examined human subjectivity across a host of other domains. This includes the attitudes of video game enthusiasts and the understandings of audiences drawn to particular forms of popular culture.  

Thomas co-authored a widely used introductory text, “Q Methodology.” He also served as the editor of the scholarly journal devoted to the publication of Q-methodological research, “Operant Subjectivity,” from 1994 to 1998.

Within political science, Thomas has used Q methodology in his political psychology research.

“Though the basic idea behind Q methodology is some eight decades old, the methodology is still not well-understood in social-science circles and, for reasons that are somewhat mysterious, Q is regarded as controversial within the human sciences generally in the U.S.,” Thomas continued. “That my work would be deemed worthy of recognition by ISSSS with the award bearing Stephenson's name is truly an honor and very humbling at the same time.”

Thomas will receive the award at the ISSSS Conference Sept. 3-6, in Salt Lake City.