GA Mentorship Awards

Graduate Student Peer Mentor Awards

2025 Outstanding Graduate Student Peer Mentor Awards

The UC Berkeley Outstanding Graduate Student Peer Mentor Award honors Berkeley graduate and professional students who have shown an outstanding commitment to mentoring, advising, and generally supporting either undergraduate students or their fellow graduate students.

The Graduate Assembly will present four awards to selected mentors each year. Although only one nomination letter is required for a mentor to be considered for the award, we encourage nominators to reach out to others to provide supplemental letters of nomination. Read on for more details on nomination process and submit your letter through this form. The deadline is Monday, February 17th, 2025, 11:59 p.m. Email the GA President Chief of Staff if you have questions at chief-ga@berkeley.edu.

Nominee Eligibility

Any student who is currently enrolled in a graduate or professional degree program at UC Berkeley at the time of nomination is eligible to receive the award. Both full-time and part-time students can be nominated for this award. Individuals who have previously won the Graduate Student Peer Mentor Award are not eligible to be nominated. Previous nominees who have not received the award may be re-nominated.

Selection Criteria

The Graduate Student Peer Mentor Award recognizes graduate and professional students who have demonstrated excellence in mentoring and advising of either undergraduate students or other graduate student peers. The selection committee encourages nominators to focus on specific stories and situations in which the nominee demonstrated mentoring which went above and beyond the norm. Nominees are evaluated based on these criteria:

  1. How has the nominee provided outstanding personal support and development to the nominator(s)?
  2. How has the nominee shaped and inspired the professional work of the nominator(s)?
  3. How has the nominee fostered inclusive and supportive communities in their workspaces?
  4. How has the nominee supported the advancement of the careers of the nominators(s)?

Nomination Process

Only one nomination is required for a mentor to be considered for the award. If there are multiple nomination letters, one of the nominators must indicate they are the primary nominator. The primary nominator must be a present or former Berkeley student (undergraduate or graduate). Associate nominators can include postdocs, faculty, staff, or consist of jointly written letters.

Nominators must submit their nomination through this form. The deadline is Monday, February 17th, 2025, 11:59 p.m.

Faculty Mentor Awards

The Faculty Mentor Award (FMA)

The UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly Faculty Mentor Award honors members of the Berkeley faculty and teaching staff who have shown an outstanding commitment to mentoring, advising, and supporting graduate students. The Graduate Assembly presents three awards to selected mentors every year. Please note that this award is different from the Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Awards, which are also awarded to faculty each spring.

The primary nominator must be a current graduate student or recent graduate (this past May or later) who has directly benefited from some aspect of the candidate’s mentoring or advising. Associate nominators can include undergraduates, postdocs, or consist of jointly written letters.

A call for nominations for the 2025 FMA was sent out in the Fall semester of 2024. Please submit nominations via this form. The deadline is Monday, February 17th, 2025, 11:59 p.m. Email GA President’s Chief of Staff if you have questions about the FMA at chief-ga@berkeley.edu.

Nominee Eligibility

Any member of the Academic Senate or teaching staff affiliated with a graduate degree-granting program (including professional programs) can be nominated for the award, so long as the nominee directs advanced degree work. Nominees can include lecturers with and without security of employment; assistant, associate, full professors, and emeriti. Individuals who have won an award in the last two years (2023 and 2024) are not eligible for the 2025 awards. Previous nominees who have not received the award may be re-nominated. A nomination from a member of the selection committee or for an advisor to a member of the selection committee will not be considered.

Selection Criteria

The FMA recognizes distinction in mentoring and advising only. Therefore, it is meant to recognize outstanding commitment to mentoring an advisee, and not the relationship between a faculty member and someone who was only their GSI.

The selection committee would like to know how the nominee has exceeded the standard role played by an adviser; awardees are evaluated with respect to the three following criteria:

  1. To what extent has the nominee provided outstanding personal support/development (in any form)?
  2. To what extent has the nominee helped shape the graduate work of the nominator(s)?
  3. To what extent has the nominee helped the nominator(s) further their career?

The selection committee is interested in specific examples of extraordinary mentorship, but since the committee is composed of graduate students from a variety of disciplines, and interested only in identifying excellence in advising, we recommend that your letters not focus too much on research specifics.

Nomination Process

Each nominee must receive at least 3 nomination letters from 3 individuals. One of the nominators must be a graduate student or recent graduate (May 2023 or later) who has directly benefited from some aspect of the candidate’s mentoring or advising. One of the three nominators will identify as the primary nominator. The primary nominator must be a present or former graduate student; associate nominators can include undergraduates or consist of jointly written letters. Please submit nominations via this form. The deadline is Monday, February 17th, 2025, 11:59 p.m. Email the GA President Chief of Staff if you have questions at chief-ga@berkeley.edu. We highly recommend that you notify the faculty member that you are nominating.
 

Previous Graduate Student Peer Mentor Awards Winners

2024 Winners:

Alagia Cirolia, MSW and PhD Student, School of Social Welfare
David Joseph-Goteiner, PhD Student, Department of Sociology
Federico Mora, Ph.D Student, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Myoungseok Kim, Ph.D Student, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

2023 Winners:

Mitzia E. Martinez Castellanos, Ph.D. Student, Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program at Berkeley Law School
Naniette H. Coleman, Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology
Jason Cheng-Hsiang Hsu, Ph.D. Candidate, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Teresita Cruz Vital, Ph.D. Candidate, Economics

2022 Winners:

Michael Banerjee, Ph.D. Student, Jurisprudence and Social Policy
Caleb Dawson, Ph.D. Candidate, Graduate School of Education
Emma Lurie, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Information
Alisha Menon, Ph.D. Candidate, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

2021 Winners:

Carolina Talavera, Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology
Peter Kloess, Ph.D. Candidate in Integrative Biology
Zacharias Vangelatos, Ph.D. Candidate in Mechanical Engineering
Desirée Valadares, Ph.D. Candidate in Architecture

Previous Faculty Mentor Award Winners

See press releases associated with each FMA award round on the GA Press Releases page.

2024 Winners

Rodrigo Almeida, Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Emmeline Chuang, Associate Professor and Mack Distinguished Professor, School of Social Welfare
Michaela Mattes, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science

2023 Winners

Diana Bautista, Professor, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
Clancy Wilmott, Assistant Professor, Geography and Berkeley Center for New Media
José Pablo Vázquez-Medina, Assistant Professor, Integrative Biology

2022 Winners

Mara Loveman, Professor, Sociology
Mark Sandberg, Professor, Film & Media Studies, Scandinavian Studies
Lok Siu, Associate Professor, Ethnic Studies

2021 Winners

Timothy Bowles, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
Drew Jacoby-Senghor, Assistant Professor, Haas School of Business
Maria Mavroudi, Professor, Department of History

2020 Winners


2019 Winners

2018 Winners

2017 Winners

  • Imke de Pater — Professor, Astronomy
  • Shari Huhndorf, Professor, Native American Studies and Ethnic Studies
  • Janelle Scott — Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education and African American Studies

2016 Winners

  • Kinch Hoekstra — Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science
  • Mahasin Mujahid — Assistant Professor, Public Health, Epidemiology
  • Costas J. Spanos — Andrew S. Grove Distinguished Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences.

2015 Winners

  • Abigail De Kosnik — Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies
  • Andrea DuBrow — School of Social Welfare
  • Todd Hickey — Classics

2014 Winners

  • Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe — English
  • Jeffrey Long — Chemistry
  • Maciej Zworski — Mathematics

2013 Winners

  • Andrea Peterson — Law
  • Patricia Penn Hilden — Ethnic Studies
  • Juana Maria Rodriguez — Gender and Women Studies

2012 Winners

  • Teresa Caldeira — City and Regional Planning
  • Alastair Iles — Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
  • Craig Moritz — Integrative Biology

2011 Winners

  • Jennifer Miller — English
  • Barrie Thorne — Sociology
  • David Ackerly — Integrative Biology

2010 Winners

  • Lisa F. Barcellos — Public Health
  • Tsu-Jae King Liu — Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
  • Nicholas Paige — French

2009 Winners

  • Inez Fung — Earth and Planetary Science
  • Carla Hesse — History
  • Loren Patridge — History of Art

2008 Winners

  • Dru Dougherty — Spanish and Portuguese
  • Paola Bacchetta — Gender and Women’s Studies
  • Carlos F. Daganzo — Civil and Environmental Engineering

2007 Winners

  • Richard Norgaard — Energy and Resource Group
  • Willian B. Taylor — History
  • Christine Wildsoet — Optometry

2006 Winners

  • Nelson Graburn — Anthropology
  • Ananya Roy — City and Regional Planning, Environmental Design
  • John Lindow — Scandinavian Studies

2005 Winners

  • Severin Borenstein — Haas School of Business
  • David Collier — Political Science
  • Jabari Mahiri — Education
  • Thomas Scanlon — Mathematics

2004 Winners (first year)

  • Patricia Baquedano-Lopez — LLSC, Graduate School of Education
  • Sally Fairfax — Society and Environment, Division of Environmental Science, Policy and Management
  • John Harte — Division of Ecosystem Sciences, ESPM College of Natural Resources, Energy and Resource Group
  • Donald Moore — Social Cultural Anthropology