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 2026 Award Recipients!
Outstanding Graduate Student Instructors
Teaching Effectiveness Award for GSIs
- Annabel Barry, English, Re-Vising Language, Re-Vising Ideas
- Taylor Brown, School of Social Welfare, Teaching Democratic Practice in an Era of Democratic Decline
- Erez Buchweitz, Statistics, Teaching Practical Skills in the Age of AI
- Dev Desai, Molecular and Cell Biology, A Jigsaw Approach to Exam Review
- Sherine Ebadi, Geography, UDL and ESL in the Context of Global Studies
- Elena Leonenko, Slavic, From Textbook to Reel Life: Transforming Russian Learning with Instagram Reels
- Maxwell Lindquist, Sociology, Threading the Needle: Values and Evidence in Political Economy
- Jonathan Mackris, Film and Media, Analyzing Moving Images: A “Salon-Style” Approach
- Oliver Maynard, Statistics, The Step That Must Be Yours
- Julia Paris, Economics, Using Index Cards to Build a Discussion Culture in Economics Section
- Angelica Remache Lopez, Political Science, Teaching The Politics of Immigration: Empirical Tools and Evidence-Based Dialogue
- José Eduardo Valdivia Heredia, Ethnic Studies, Teaching with Media and Primary Sources: Grounding Theory in Genealogy and Method
- Zhehang Zhang, Sociology, From Gray Theory to Living Theory: Collective Meaning-Making in the Social Theory Classroom
Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentorship of GSIs
- Grace Erny, Assistant Professor, Ancient Greek & Roman Studies
- Ricarda Hammer, Assistant Professor, Sociology
- Hillel David Soifer, Associate Professor, Political Science