Harvard honors teaching faculty 2014

Arts and Sciences professors recognized for distinction in the classroom and as advisers

Mahzarin Banaji and David Cutler

At the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) meeting on May 6, in an annual ritual, Dean Michael D. Smith conferred diverse honors on professors who have been recognized for outstanding teaching, advising, and mentoring—some chosen by the faculty itself, and some by students.

Harvard College Professorships, FAS’s highest award for distinguished undergraduate teaching and advising, confer that title for five years, plus supplemental funds in support of the faculty members’ research. This year’s honorands are:

This year’s winners of the Roslyn Abramson Award, acknowledging junior faculty members for outstanding undergraduate teaching (they are chosen for “their ability to communicate with and inspire undergraduates, their accessibility to undergraduates, their sensitivity to undergraduates’ needs, and their devotion to teaching”), are:

The Undergraduate Council conferred its Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prizes  (which recognize superb teaching by members of the Harvard faculties who teach undergraduates) on Kiran Gajwani, a concentration adviser in economics; Justin Gest, a lecturer on government and lecturer on sociology; and Felipe Da Cruz ’15, an undergraduate teaching fellow.

The council conferred its John R. Marquand Prize for Exceptional Advising and Counseling of Harvard undergraduates on Lauren Brandt, Allston Burr Resident Dean of Leverett House; Marco Basile, a tutor in Lowell House; Christopher City, head coach of men’s and women’s Nordic skiing; and Dakota Santana-Grace ’16, a peer advising fellow in Matthews Hall.

Winners of the GSAS [Graduate School of Arts and Sciences] Graduate Student Council’s Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award, established to honor faculty members who go out of their way to offer support and guidance to graduate students’ research, education, professional and personal development, and career plans, are:

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