Previous Award Recipients | Mentoring Awards

Award Recipients

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2013 Recipients | Event Slideshow

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Junior Faculty

Leonardo Arriola | Assistant Professor | Political Science

Leonardo Arriola is an exemplary graduate mentor, one whose wealth of knowledge and academic rigor is matched by his kindness and committment to every aspect of his students professional and personal development. Professor Arriola's infectious passion for the study of African politics not only inspire students, but have also allowed them to frame and develop methodologically innovative projects of their own. He painstakingly pushes his students to attain exacting standards in their scholarship by providing voluminous and hugely helpful critiques of their written work. Since joining the Berkeley faculty as an assistant professor in 2008, Arriola has almost single-handedly sustained a community of scholars of African politics at Berkeley. At the same time, his engaged mentorship and far-reaching intellectual breadth has drawn an unusually large and diverse group of students, not only from his own field, but also from several sub-fields and disciplines across campus. His students and colleagues alike laud him as a brilliant, welcoming, and exceptionally dedicated mentor.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Senior Faculty

Robert Bergman | Professor | Chemistry

Professor Bergman has had a long and very distinguished career to date; several have noted that he is a strong candidate for a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Among his many accomplishments, he is an exceptional mentor to graduate students. He has guided about 270 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows through the rigors of their academic programs and continues to provide advice and support throughout their careers. Many of Professor Bergman's mentees have gone on to highly distinguished careers in academia and industry. A frequent comment from his former graduate students is that Professor Bergman is deeply engaged with every student, provides an environment that allows each to flourish, and guides everyone to their full potential. Professor Bergman is also inspirational to his students as a mentor who pursues excellence in research but also whose concern for broader societal issues led him to establish the Green Chemistry initiative on campus, and whose enthusiasm for teaching and outreach led him to establish the BASIS program that engages graduate students in bringing science activities to the local school systems.

Raka Ray | Professor | Sociology and South and Southeast Asian Studies

Raka Ray is a committed mentor with the capacity to energize and inspire her students. Her supportive guidance has benefitted students from across campus, as in addition to serving as Chair of the Department of Sociology, she holds an appointment in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies. Her students and colleagues describe her as approachable and willing to listen, and guided by her excellent instincts and a strong moral compass. Her field-leading work in the sociology of gender has inspired the intellectual inquiry of countless students, and her commitment to their growth as scholars has propelled her students on to receive awards for dissertations and papers and to secure prestigious positions after their time at Berkeley. Raka is known for mentoring former students well into their careers, and for instilling not only the virtue of mentorship in those who have benefitted from her guidance, but the skills to be effective mentors themselves.

2012 Recipients | Event Slideshow

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Junior Faculty

Jake Kosek | Assistant Professor | Geography

Jake Kosek is an intellectual role model with a kind and generous personality, attentive to each of his students as individual thinkers and human beings. He pushes students to their intellectual limits while providing tremendous support. His conceptual power and scope free the creativity of each student while guiding them toward rigorous engagement with disciplinary scholarship. Since beginning as a Berkeley faculty member in 2008, he has been inundated by students from across the campus. He developed and taught three new graduate seminars on topics of cultural, environmental and political geography, and has received the very top evaluations for his graduate seminars and for his contributing membership on numerous doctoral oral and dissertation committees. Students and colleagues alike describe him as a truly brilliant, inspired and inspiring mentor.

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Senior Faculty

Nancy Peluso | Professor | Environmental Science, Policy, and Management

Nancy Peluso’s mentorship is defined by her unending dedication to and compassion for all students around her. Nancy takes on any amount of extra work necessary to see graduate students succeed. When graduate students in her discipline ask for a new course to meet their evolving academic needs, Nancy responds by not only developing the new course but by teaching it. Her students note that she not only teaches them how to answer questions but how to ask them. Nancy instills students with a sense of confidence and grounding, treating them as intellectual equals, and the emotional support that she extends to students in critical times of need far surpasses the role of a typical mentor. In short, many distinguished mentors may have moved metaphorical mountains to help graduate students succeed, but only Nancy has, quite literally, trekked to the top of one. Clearly, Nancy does not just meet the standards for a distinguished graduate student mentor—she redefines them.

Bernd Sturmfels | Professor | Mathematics

Bernd Sturmfels is a phenomenal adviser who has shaped the lives and careers of many mathematicians and scientists. Empowering students from around the world, both men and women, to take on extra responsibilities as they become leaders in the field of mathematics, Sturmfels goes further by continually matching just the right mathematical problems with just the right people. “As if by magic”, he knows which problems are suitable for whom. He does this by engaging with students and peers in a deep and genuine fashion, probing interests, listening, remembering. A highly accomplished leader in his research field, Sturmfels nevertheless continues to engage new generations of students, here and abroad, year after year. The influence of this truly outstanding mentor reaches far beyond Berkeley, in both space and time.

2011 Recipients - Event Slideshow

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Junior Faculty

Maria Paz Gutierrez | Assistant Professor | Architecture
Inspirational, motivational and pioneering are common descriptions of Maria Paz Gutierrez and her mentorship style. She inspires students not only as a distinguished researcher and innovator in her own field of architecture, but also by reaching across disciplines to build collaborations that benefit her students and students in other departments. She ignites confidence and nurtures ambition by taking personal interest in the academic, professional and all-around development of graduate and undergraduate students alike. That includes seeking outside support to create opportunities for students to showcase their work. In her studio classes, and in 1-on-1 conversations, her students describe her as a generous source of advice and constructive criticism who has made a critical impact on the ethos of her entire school.

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Senior Faculty

Irina Paperno | Professor | Slavic Languages and Literatures
Irena Paperno has transformed Berkeley’s Slavic Department into the leading interdisciplinary program in the country, according to all reports. She spearheaded curricular reform such that graduate students acquire extensive breadth relevant to their intellectual interests. Her community also inspires and encourages graduate students in several allied departments. Pragmatically, she established a constructive student progress assessment system; intellectually, she is a critic who “braces” students and their work, and thereby the discipline. Paperno is a sought-after mentor whose ability to open the minds of students has resulted in a rich body of interdisciplinary work. She projects a moral dedication to scholarship and its integration into all aspects of life. Energy, rigor, and drive characterize her intense commitment to students and to scholarship.

2010 Recipients - Event Slideshow

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Junior Faculty

Mark Healey | Assistant Professor | History
Across many fields — History, Latin American Studies, Anthropology, etc. — Mark Healey provides intellectual inspiration, tireless guidance through the demanding graduate experience and genuine enthusiasm for his students’ nascent projects. In dialogue Mark is a “friendly but severe critic” who engages students with “just the right amount of leeway and necessary pressure.” While mentoring a staggering number of individuals from different departments, he devised a system that guarantees full support for all entering graduate students in History. Numerous letters tell of a rare combination of “erudition, approachability and empathy” that serves as a model of mentorship for the entire campus.

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Faculty

Louise Fortmann | Professor | Environmental Science, Policy & Management
It is clear that graduate students flock to Louise Fortmann for more than her endless stash of tea and fancy chocolate. She is utterly dedicated to her students: as one nominator remarked, “Once you are a student of Louise Fortmann... you are never far from her thoughts.” Fortmann is a strong advocate for gender equity and interdisciplinary research, building bridges not only among different academic fields, but also between academics and the communities that sustain their research. Perhaps most importantly, she has fostered a supportive environment where her students feel safe enough to share and discuss their ideas and their lives, developing confidence essential to success, and beginning to see themselves as serious scholars.

Kent Lightfoot | Professor | Anthropology
Kent Lightfoot is widely regarded as an “unfailingly kind and generous” mentor who practices “vertical mentoring” such that current and former students constitute “a strong and durable intellectual community”. He is considered “a model for the ethical practice of archaeology” and his projects and practices have “re-shap[ed] the entire discipline.” His sensitive, respectful involvement of native peoples as collaborators and his advancement of members of under-represented groups have had great impact both on students and on archaeology. His ability “to intervene in intellectual debates in constructive ways,” coupled with intellectual rigor, a sense of humor, and deep commitment, exerts a strong and steady influence on his students, present and past.

2009 Recipients - Event Slideshow

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Junior Faculty

Amani Nuru-Jeter | Assistant Professor | Public Health
In only four years at Berkeley, Amani Nuru-Jeter’s passion for research, electrifying presence in the classroom, and wise mentoring have transformed the experience of studying social epidemiology in the School of Public Health. Testimonials extol her as a role model, particularly for young women students and students of color, and credit the professional success of graduates in diverse settings to her encouragement, high standards, and challenging criticism. “(H)er vibrant energy, her appreciation for you as a person, her critical knowledge of her discipline and the world of research, and her dedication,” one student concluded, “help you attain your goals.”

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Faculty

Marianne Constable | Professor | Rhetoric
Marianne Constable has enabled young scholars, at Berkeley and beyond, to achieve innovative multi-disciplinary examinations of law, philosophy, and society through her extraordinary intellectual generosity, lucid criticism, and what one student aptly termed “a staggering degree of dedication.” Her advocacy for difficult students and those confronting difficulties combined with the example of her own lively passion for knowledge has made Constable a “beacon of inspiration.” Dozens of moving letters expressed gratitude for Professor Constable’s pragmatic guidance, deep loyalty, and, especially, the “handwritten roadmaps” that clarified the way forward for students struggling to find their own voice as scholars.

2008 Recipients - Event Slideshow

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Junior Faculty

Irene Bloemraad | Assistant Professor | Department of Sociology
In only five years in Berkeley, Irene Bloemraad has already deeply influenced the development of graduate students in multiple departments. The Immigration Workshop which she created gives students from Sociology, Law, Political Science, Social Welfare, and History access to an interdisciplinary scholarly community, and also trains students in the nuts and bolts of professional activity. Testimonials from former students single out her ability to provide "hard-headed constructive criticism", and to recognize and nurture the potential within a young scholar, as keys to her success.

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Faculty

Susanna Barrows | Professor | Department of History
Susanna Barrows is the leading PhD mentor of her generation in modern French history, and has reshaped the field through the work of her students, the products of "l'usine Barrows", who now grace the faculties of numerous major universities. Professor Barrows has a singular genius for the nurturing of creativity and deep inquiry, for enabling young scholars to find their own voices; yet at the same time, she has fostered a deep sense of a productive community among her students. "Her gifts", wrote one former student, "keep on giving" throughout a lifetime.

Alexandre Chorin | Professor | Department of Mathematics
During a 35-year career at Berkeley, which has been distinguished in all facets, Alexandre Chorin has mentored 48 PhD students, who have gone on to become leaders in academia, in the national laboratories, and in industry. Themes emerging from testimonials from 25 of these students include Professor Chorin's natural penchant for teaching by example, his accessibility, his deep concern for all aspects of his students' lives and development, and above all, his extraordinary ability to nurture independence and creativity.

2007 Recipients - Event Slideshow

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Faculty

José David Saldívar | Professor | Department of Ethnic Studies
Professor Saldívar is a celebrated expert in the field of Chicano/a Studies whose mentorship has produced some of the finest scholars in this new and growing field. Many of his current and former students have faced the additional challenge of entering the academia as people of color from underprivileged backgrounds. Professor Saldívar has taught them how to navigate the process of academic credentialing and professionalization. His dedication, kindness, and openness have extended to graduate students at Berkeley as well as other universities. Several letter writers described how their first meeting with Professor Saldívar at an academic conference resulted in a long mentoring relationship that has shaped not only their scholarship and their careers, but also their own outlook on how to be a teacher.

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Junior Faculty

Sofia Berto Villas-Boas | Assistant Professor | Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics
Maximilian Auffhammer | Assistant Professor | Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics
Sofia Berto Villas-Boas and Maximilian Auffhammer jointly instituted a new graduate student mentoring program in the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics. The program is a year-long job placement seminar intended to prepare graduate students for the academic job market. The students receive feedback on their job applications and job talks. They also have an opportunity to do mock interviews. The program was voluntarily created by Professors Villas-Boas and Auffhammer who wanted to share what they themselves learned from having recently gone through the job search process. It required a significant time commitment and dedication on their part. As a result of the program, the department has had a 100% placement record in the last four years, with students securing positions in leading economics departments in the country and research organizations worldwide.