In conjunction with the Graduate Council’s Advisory Committee for GSI Affairs, the GSI Teaching & Resource Center annually sponsors four types of awards.
The Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award recognizes GSIs who have been nominated for excellence in teaching in their departments.
The Teaching Effectiveness Award for GSIs honors a small number of GSIs who devise solutions to teaching or learning problems they have identified in their classes and write them up in a one-page essay. These essays are published on the GSI Center website for use by instructors.
The Teagle Foundation Award for Excellence in Enhancing Student Learning gives recent TEA recipients the opportunity to connect effective teaching strategies to the research on how students learn, in a brief essay published on the GSI Center website.
The Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentorship of GSIs acknowledges faculty members who have provided excellent guidance and mentoring to GSIs.
For further information about these awards, please see our Awards FAQ page.
Congratulations 2025 Award Recipients!
Outstanding Graduate Student Instructors
Teaching Effectiveness Award for GSIs
- Ishani Cheshire, Astronomy (Home Department: School of Information), Closing the Collaboration Gap: Facilitating Meaningful Connection in Astronomy Education
- Matthew Easton, Political Science, Teaching US Politics During an Election Year: Reducing Classroom Polarization Through Perspective Taking
- Xuequin Lin, School of Education, Enhancing Student Confidence and Competency in Data Analysis
- Anahit Manoukian, Spanish and Portuguese, What’s a Secondary Source Anyway? Helping Students Navigate and Effectively Integrate Scholarly Materials
- Neel Modi, Physics, Leading by Counterexample
- Kieren Rudge, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, Grounding Environmental Problem-Solving Theory in Tangible Case Studies
- Sterling Saint Rain, Mathematics, The Grammar of Mathematics: A Constructive Approach to Notation
- Anna Scharnagl, Integrative Biology, From Major Flop to Bite-Sized Pieces
- Zhixiang Su, Sociology, Teaching Quantitative Methods Without Math? Statistical Learning Through Games and Critical Dialogues
- Sylvie Thode, English, Moving Fast, Getting Close: How to Skim with Intention
- Emily Fjaellen Thompson, Anthropology, Fostering Critical Engagement with Visual Materials: A Multi-Stage Approach to Teaching Visual Anthropology
- Sharaban T. Zaman, Legal Studies, Creating Safe Spaces for Dialogue in Immigration Law
- Keren Zou, History, Unsilencing Californios: Teaching Historical Agency through Archives
Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentorship of GSIs
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Anneka Lenssen, Associate Professor, Department of History of Art
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Erin Murphy-Graham, Adjunct Professor, School of Education
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Michal Shuldman, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Department of Integrative Biology