Award Recipients

Allen Goldstein, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering and ESPM

Professor Goldstein’s graduate students agree that Professor Goldstein embodies “the best characteristics of a fantastic mentor and advisor, encouraging, supportive, creative, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and outstanding.”

Professor Goldstein is known for his commitment to providing “personalized attention and support” not only for graduate students, but also for undergraduates, postdocs, visiting scholars, etc. of diverse backgrounds while collaboratively tackling complex problems with them in atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry. Professor Goldstein is a skilled teacher who guides his students in cutting-edge research projects, and mentors them through every stage of their graduate careers and beyond.

This is not the first time Professor Goldstein has been nominated for the Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award. In fact, Professor Goldstein has been nominated 7 times in the past, which shows the enthusiasm and determination of his graduate students as well as how well deserved this award is for Professor Goldstein.

For these reasons highlighted, the Graduate Council is honored to award Professor Allen Goldstein the 2024 Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Late-Career Faculty.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty

Tianna Paschel, Associate Professor, African American Studies and Sociology

Professor Paschel’s nominators, who include many current and former students and colleagues spread through five departments, routinely speak of her going above and beyond in her service to them for their intellectual, professional, and personal development. “Her distinction lies not only in the volume of students that she mentors — many of whom have suffered grave disservices — but also in her drive to graciously fortify [them] to withstand setbacks and usher [them] toward [their] greatest capacity to contribute to our scholarly fields and communities.”

Professor Paschel practices an exquisite form of mentorship. “She balances expert and current guidance on every aspect of the PhD, from dissertation through the academic job market, while also bringing humor, joy, and humanity to her interactions with students. Further, she has clear guidelines and high expectations while also being understanding and compassionate.”

For these reasons highlighted, as well as many others raised by her nominators, the Graduate Council is honored to award Professor Tianna Paschel the 2024 Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty.

Daniel Fletcher, Purnendu Chatterjee Chair in Engineering Biological Systems, Bioengineering

Professor Fletcher’s graduate students emphasize the tremendous time and effort that he devotes to their development, including weekly individual meetings, “one-on-one” tutoring, active support and advocacy in obtaining fellowships and jobs, and provision of both academic and emotional support. And this unflagging support is just as present for students whose research is more distant from his own core research agenda, or who may not be on track for the most elite placement as scholars. Professor Fletcher’s students characterize him as “by far the best graduate student mentor in my (now 20-year) experience”; as having an “immeasurable impact on my career,” more than any other person; as “rebuild[ing] you into a better version of yourself,” with an emphasis on developing you into the kind of researcher that you want to be; and as “the most important factor in my becoming a faculty.” In a collaborative letter by five former students, they conclude: “What started out as a graduate student-advisor relationship has become life-long mentorship and personal friendship.”

Professor Fletcher is well-known for his “religious devotion” to his Wednesday morning lab meetings, in which students present their progress and discuss (and receive guidance on) emerging issues in their research. The meetings are characterized by deep engagement and mutual support. Even while serving as department chair, “the lab meeting remained sacred” and other demands were scheduled around it. Further, professor Fletcher’s teaching and contributions extend far beyond Berkeley students. As Director of the Woods Hole Marine Biology Lab Physiology course, he is responsible for bringing Ph.D. students and postdocs from around the world together for an advanced summer course in physiology involving research sessions under the guidance of senior Berkeley graduate students. In this environment, Fletcher’s mentorship extends to cultivating the skills necessary for his graduate students to effectively supervise and support their own research teams, building their confidence, career skills, and international collaboration networks.

An additional important and unique theme in Fletcher’s role as mentor is to foster bonds of community outside narrow academic pursuits. This is well-illustrated by the fact that each year he organizes an art show featuring eclectic contributions from his research group displayed in the lobby of Stanley Hall. Another example is professor Fletcher’s participation in, and his encouragement and support for his students’ participation in, going to bay area schools to provide science outreach, and participating in the Bay Area Science Festival, as well as events with the Exploratorium and the California Academy of Sciences. In this way professor Fletcher’s mentorship extends to cultivating the next generation of Bay Area science students. Through these community building activities with his graduate students, Professor Fletcher creates opportunities for them to draw connections between their scholarship and their community. As one colleague put it, professor Fletcher’s research group “functions with … humane support and shines with … personal diversity.”

For these reasons highlighted, the Graduate Council is honored to award Professor Daniel Fletcher the 2023 Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Late-Career Faculty.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty

Fumi Okiji, Assistant Professor, Rhetoric

Professor Fumi Okiji, who teaches graduate classes on race and political theory in the Department of Rhetoric, is an exemplary mentor both inside and outside the classroom. Inside, her novel and dynamic approach to these topics is described by one student as “conceptually and emotionally challenging,” and another as “generous and dynamic.” Outside, she is a generous listener who provides guidance in a conversational way, and is called both challenging and collaborative. In addition, during the recent strike, a faculty colleague describes how Professor Okiji maintained an openness and responsiveness to the experience of the graduate students, thereby playing a critical role in departmental faculty discussions.

While mentors are always exemplars of successful adaptation to academic life, they model scholarship in different ways. Students describe Professor Okiji in a particularly distinctive way, in one case as a model for how to “intellectually live within a space of discomfort with fierce clarity and commitment.” Her influence is of a kind with her approach to critical theory, which is disruptive in that she seeks alternative epistemological grounds from which to question disciplinary assumptions. As one might expect, the students and faculty who nominated her have tried to capture the ways in which she simultaneously destabilizes and supports their work. One student lauds her ability to listen, and her willingness to engage with the issues that mattered to them: “through this crucial sense of openness and of immersive listening (a skill, no doubt, gained from her career as a Jazz vocalist)… Okiji is able to create spaces for dialogues that, in their rawness and sometimes difficulty, seldom find place elsewhere.” The dedication with which she approaches her role is received as welcome emotional support on the part of other students. One recalls: “when the stress of arguably the most intensive period of the PhD process was overwhelming to me, Professor Okiji took time outside of our more logistical meetings to give me a space to vent and think through ways of approaching a daunting task in a more sustainable way by talking through writing strategies and helping me take a step back to recenter my academic goals…” For Professor Okiji, respect for a student’s project is a precondition for academic exchange: “Fumi made me feel welcome and part of a place that I had grown accustomed to feel alienation. In our monthly meetings, … [she provided] critical insight that deeply shifted my project in meaningful ways.” If we listen carefully to these phrases — she “gave me [a] space” and “made me feel… part of a place” – we can hear how Professor Okiji makes her students feel less like outsiders.

For her “clarity and commitment,” the Graduate Council is proud to award Professor Fumi Okiji the 2023 Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty.

Naomi Ginsberg, Associate Professor, Chemistry

Professor Naomi Ginsberg is both an inspiring mentor to students in her lab and an outstanding leader of efforts that have genuinely improved the well-being and success of graduate students throughout her department. Her mentees describe her approach as empathic, “relentlessly positive,” “ceaselessly dedicated”—and deliberately designed to help students thrive. Professor Ginsberg enthusiastically participates in workshops and studies best practices on mentoring and promoting diversity, inclusion, and student success in STEM fields. As colleagues note, she “really walks the walk”—“putting into practice the improvements in mentoring that she advocates for within the department.”

Professor Ginsberg’s approach to mentoring students is structured, personalized, and highly engaged. She uses individual development plans that encourage students to take ownership of their own career goals and trajectories. She models high standards of achievement and clarity of communication; and brings out the best in each student through multiple rounds of feedback, practice talks, mock exams, final-hour edits, and moral support. In her lab, she has cultivated a “cohesive, encouraging and collaborative spirit” where there are “no bad questions.” She is, in short, “an outstanding science coach” and “terrific role model.”

As summarized by a colleague, “whether it is guiding students towards scientific independence, tearing down barriers that stand in the way of equity and inclusion, or going the extra mile to improve graduate student mental health, Prof. Ginsberg is a beacon of mentoring excellence.” The Graduate Council is proud to award Professor Naomi Ginsberg the 2022 Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Later-Career Faculty.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty

Carl J. Rothfels, Assistant Professor, Integrative Biology

Professor Carl Rothfels is an outstanding mentor who fosters research excellence and graduate student wellbeing in an exemplary and welcoming lab environment and in the Department of Integrative Biology as a whole.

The Rothfels lab is administered through principles of transparency and inclusivity, designed intentionally with jointly negotiated Terms of Engagement that work to welcome a diverse student cohort and allow them to thrive; in the words of one student, this lays the foundation to demonstrate that “a diverse community of scientists makes for better science.” Another notes, “Carl’s lab is, by a wide margin, the most vibrant and interactive scientific community of which I have been a part,” and others note that it functions as an intellectual and social hub for students outside the lab itself. Professor Rothfels is praised by current and former students as a compassionate, supportive, and emotionally intelligent mentor who models curiosity, good humor, productivity, and a healthy work-life balance. These qualities came out strongly in the pivot to online mentoring, teaching, and research; one student described Professor Rothfels as “an extraordinary mentor in extraordinarily challenging times” due to the many small and big ways he has helped students adapt nimbly to the major disruptions in research and life over the past two years and still accomplish their academic goals.

Professor Rothfels gives generously of his time, with a dual emphasis on thinking about larger questions (“he provides the clarity to see the big picture”) and on the detailed honing of skills in writing and presentation. He is a consummate editor, working closely and patiently with students on many, many drafts of the entire range of professional materials, from publications to presentations and job applications, what one student calls “the long haul in pursuit of excellence.” He not only provides extensive support and feedback to students at every step of their graduate educations, but also beyond as they start their careers. For his selfless and empathetic mentoring at an early stage of his faculty career, Professor Carl Rothfels is a worthy recipient of the Carol D. Soc Mentoring Award.

Penny Edwards, Associate Professor, South and Southeast Asian Studies

Professor Penny Edwards

Professor Penny Edwards has shown exceptional leadership as a mentor, scholar, and champion of graduate students within her department and beyond. Her “life-changing” mentorship takes many forms, from the deep relationships and close attention that underlie her academic advising (even with students who are not technically “her” advisees), to her infrastructural and institutional interventions on behalf of graduate students across campus.

Former and current students in her department speak with awe of the rigorous, challenging, and deeply supportive intellectual and professional guidance she routinely provides, well into the next phases of their careers. “Penny has been by far, the most compassionate, inspiring, and deeply profound professors I have ever had the privilege of working with.” Former students note how strongly she values ongoing intellectual exchange, no matter what their career choice. Discussing a collaborative work between the two, a student says: “Although I have graduated and moved into a non-academic career …, Penny continues to value my voice and my contributions to Cambodian studies”.

Edwards’ commitments to public scholarship and to recruiting, supporting, and sustaining students from South and Southeast Asia are, as one student writes, registering a “formative effect” on the field overall. Edwards has, to that end, created conditions for students to thrive in the context of multiple challenges. She secured federal funding that allowed the Department to extend doctoral funding to underrepresented students, an opportunity that contributed directly to students’ ability to choose to come to Berkeley. She has also, with extraordinary backbone and proactive mentorship, played an essential role in supporting students through two difficult challenges in the department (a Title IX harassment case and the untimely death of a faculty member). Students affected by both of these events and their sequelae note the seamless, career- and life-changing ways that Edwards ensured they were supported, intellectually, and had tools to survive, emotionally, including “simply” but brilliantly devising small projects to keep them connected to their work, and buoying them with the confidence to move forward. Her efforts have had important ripple effects, as a former student (and now Assistant Professor at UC Santa Cruz) is establishing guidance based directly on Edwards’ actions to support and retain survivors of harassment and the Title IX process.

The final word of this nomination, summing up what so many of her students convey, comes from a former student in Buddhist Studies: “The scholarly community she has nurtured through her mentorship …is the academic world I want to thrive in, and I thank Penny for her care and vision in bringing it to life.” The Graduate Council is proud to award Professor Penny Edwards the 2021 Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Late Career Faculty.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty

Mahasin Mujahid, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Public Health

Professor Mujahid Mahasin

Professor Mujahid is a revered mentor in the School of Public Health’s Epidemiology Division. She is widely recognized among students for the bounty of time and energy she devotes to fostering graduate student development, from guiding them through the hoops and rigors of early doctoral training and exams, to cultivating their passions into productive and rewarding dissertations, research agendas, and careers. As one student put it: “Her investment in the next generation of young scholars, and commitment to advancing the work of racial and social justice runs deep. She gives her energy, time, resources, and voice to many students.”

What her students find most remarkable is that professor Mujahid delivers this critical support for their professional development with a distinctively empathic and egalitarian ethos, “creating a supportive and hopeful classroom environment,” and “connecting with [students] first as people and then as collaborators.” This, together with her academic guidance, shapes her students both as scholars and as citizens.

Another student explained: “Mahasin’s warm honesty, unwavering faith, and high standards coupled with deep care for her students have been instrumental in shaping not only my work, but also my values and beliefs as a citizen of a society undergoing transformative struggles for justice and equity.”

For her tireless commitment to the highest level of academic training, and her equally important care and support for students as persons, the Graduate Council is proud to award professor Mujahid the 2021 Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Junior Faculty.

Matthew Welch, Professor, MCB

Professor Matthew Welch has been an exceptional graduate mentor with a lifelong commitment to his own students and an outstanding record of service to broader graduate student education and mentorship in his department. He also stands out for his work on improving diversity and inclusivity both within his lab and in his wider service to the graduate community.

The letter of support from his current students clearly attests to his deep commitment to mentorship and in particular his ability to tailor his approach to each students’ needs. He has graduate students from multiple programs with very different backgrounds and skill sets, and he has clearly done an exceptional job at meeting their diverse needs. His past students highlight the importance of his mentorship to their continued success, stating

“Matt remains a model for how to be a respected, successful and productive scientist while mentoring each trainee toward the career that fits their goals”

and “Without question, Matt is the person who has had the most profound impact on my career”. They clearly all try to emulate his approach in their own groups by asking themselves “What would Matt do?” when thinking about their own approaches. In addition to his excellent mentorship within his own lab, he has also made an outstanding contribution through his service on campus. He spent 5 years as head advisor and chair of the MCB graduate affairs committee and is the PI on the largest NIH training grant “The molecular basis of cell function”, which supports 40 trainees. In addition, he has also served on the Graduate Group in Microbiology steering committee and served as a faculty mentor for the iMCB program, which provides additional support and academic assistance for incoming graduate students helping create a more inclusive space for MCB graduate students from underrepresented communities.

Taken together, Professor Welch’s mentorship of his own graduate students and exceptional service make him the outstanding candidate for the Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Awards for Late-Career Faculty 2020.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty

Ellen Evers, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Haas School of Business

Professor Evers stands out as an exceptional mentor for the community of graduate students in the Marketing PhD program at the Haas School of Business. All of the doctoral students in the Behavioral Marketing program work with her and her students clearly see her as their role model.

The letters of support, provided by her current and former graduate students, as well as from her colleagues at the Haas School of Business, all described Professor Evers as someone, who regularly goes above and beyond in supporting students, treats students as collaborators in her work, and often offers personal help to students who face various kinds of difficulties. It is clear that she genuinely cares for her students’ physical and mental well-being and allows students to be themselves. One of her colleagues stated that “My guess is that the students will all report that she is the most available, thoughtful, and empathic of our group. I wish that our faculty never created any problems or complications, but I am grateful that Professor Evers is so good at fixing them”.

There is no doubt that student advising absolutely her top priority and she has made major contributions to increasing inclusiveness. For her exceptional mentoring, her commitment and generosity towards her students and to the Marketing graduate program, make her the outstanding candidate for the Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Awards for Early Career Faculty 2020.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Later-Career Faculty

Masayoshi Tomizuka, Professor, Mechanical Engineering Department

Professor Masayoshi Tomizuka is an exceptional researcher and mentor for graduate students.
During his 43 years at Berkeley, he has supervised a stunningly large number (120!) of Ph.D.
students. The effectiveness of his mentoring is evident from the accomplishments of his
students. Many of his former students are now faculty members in prestigious universities
throughout the country and the world. Many others took on leadership positions in domestic and
international corporations.

Many of his students have won prestigious awards in conferences
and their professional societies. Tomizuka’s mentoring philosophy is to guide his students
towards exciting new areas and give them freedom to develop their own ideas. He suggests
exciting research problems but let students develop their independent thinking, self-reliance,
and most importantly, their joys for research. Tomizuka devotes a tremendous amount of time to
his students, providing advices for advancement to candidacy, help them preparing for the
doctoral qualifying examinations, writing thesis or dissertations, obtaining funding for their
doctoral studies, and securing professional employments. Even in a large group, “Prof.
Tomizuka has been extremely attentive, supportive, and responsive to every student in the lab”.
Such responsiveness continued during the time he served as Director of Berkeley Educational
Alliance for Research in Singapore (BEARS) that required frequent travels to Singapore. He
continued to meet with students through Skype, and review and revise their papers by emails.

Tomizuka’s mentorship is not limited to academic work. When his students decided to venture
into startups, he opened his home to be their first offices and helped them secure funding
through his connections. He is genuinely concerned with the welfare of his students, and often
inviting them to his home for dinners. Many of his former students considered him a “closest
friend”, “older brother” or “academic father”. For his exceptional mentoring and devotion to his
students, we present Professor Masayoshi Tomizuka with the 2019 Carol D. Soc Distinguished
Graduate Student Mentoring Award.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty

Caitlin Rosenthal, Assistant Professor, Department of History

Professor Rosenthal stands out as an exceptional mentor for the community of graduate students in the Department of History. She designed new courses and advised a large number of graduate students with an uncompromising and distinctive style. She has maintained a combination of intellectual seriousness and interpersonal generosity that makes her a truly great scholar, teacher, and mentor wo takes a consistently humane and holistic approach to mentoring. In guiding students through the challenges and requirements of doctoral research, she helps students develop their ideas into dissertation research topics, while providing outstanding mentorship in preparing for qualifying exams and dissertation processes by giving insightful feedback. Rosenthal is dedicated to her student’s professional development, helping them grow as future teachers, faculty members and researchers, while building a supportive and encouraging working environment that led to being described as “brilliant, practical, supportive, dependable, conscientious and extremely generous”.

Rosenthal understands the growing relevance of numbers and quantification in shaping our social and economic life. Quite apart from her academic reputation, brilliant though it is, her mentorship reflects the insights gained from her research — she thinks historians should work with numbers, and her students definitely do. To each and every student she mentors Rosenthal has offered help, with the “enthusiasm and generosity that characterizes her spirit,” as one student aptly puts it. Her students consistently express deep gratitude for her mentorship. For her exceptional mentoring, her commitment and generosity towards her students, and for applying the insights of her research in mentoring practice, we present Professor Rosenthal with the 2019 Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Awards for Junior Faculty.

Sara Beckman, Senior Lecturer and Teaching Professor

Haas School of Business and Department of Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Beckman has established a spectacular record of teaching, curriculum development and mentoring since joining the faculty at UC Berkeley in 1988. She has won numerous teaching awards, including the Earl F. Cheit Excellence in Teaching Award in the Haas School of Business (four times), and the Distinguished Teaching Award at the campus level.

One colleague describes Dr. Beckman as a “mentoring artist,” who “has guided countless students through the intricacies of degree requirements, helped them identify insightful dissertation research questions, guided them in framing their research and mentoring them in professional career development.” Her colleagues and students uniformly praise her for “going beyond the call of duty expected of a research mentor or advisor.” For example, “she has served on over 100 qualifying committees, mostly in the College of Engineering. For much of her career, these activities were not an official part of her role at UC Berkeley and serve as a testament to her commitment to mentoring graduate students.”

“She has become a mentor and hero to students and faculty who want to partner across these boundaries.” Above all, Dr. Beckman is inspiring: “Sara electrifies her students with possibility.”

She also took formal responsibility for advising two students of a colleague who died unexpectedly and “additionally took it upon herself to meet with the other graduate students and the postdocs to ensure they were receiving necessary support because she recognized how hard the loss was for the whole lab community.” See more about Sara in Haas News.

The nomination letters describe an impressive array of career development opportunities that Dr. Beckman provided for her students over the years, including offering critical feedback on how to frame grant proposals that were later funded, helping students secure postdoc positions, and offering sage advice on which job to accept. One former student expressed gratitude that Dr. Beckman persistently encouraged her to “come back and graduate” after withdrawing from the PhD program to take an internship.

Dr. Beckman’s interdisciplinary background and approach to teaching and mentoring were also noted by several writers as a particular strength: “She has become a mentor and hero to students and faculty who want to partner across these boundaries.” Above all, Dr. Beckman is inspiring: “Sara electrifies her students with possibility.” “[Her] unique role as a research advisor and mentor is that she is in the trenches with you. She digs into the details of research.” “She wants you to produce great research of the highest Berkeley standard, and because she is working alongside you to improve your work, she inspires you to drive forward beyond what you thought possible.”

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty

Aila Matanock, Assistant Professor

Department of Political Science

Professor Matanock has distinguished herself as an outstanding mentor, instructor, researcher and role model since her arrival on campus in 2013. She has been exceptionally active as a direct mentor, serving on a large number of dissertation committees with students relying on her for a wide range of advice from the methodological to ethics.

The breadth of her mentoring across disciplinary and departmental boundaries was highlighted by colleagues and students. Her commitment to mentoring was evident even before she joined Berkeley, with one graduate student remarking, “we had a conversation during her job talk visit that led me to completely change my dissertation topic.” The same student states that “she had a tremendous impact on my intellectual development at Berkeley.” She is clearly an inspiration to her students, with one stating that she “always recognizes my potential and helped me go above and beyond what I thought I was capable of achieving.”

She encourages “us to look forward and think strategically about positioning ourselves for both academic and non-academic career opportunities.”

More broadly, Matanock has, as highlighted by her colleagues, worked hard using “external grants, institutional reforms and service opportunities to foster an outstanding environment for Berkeley graduate students.” Her exceptional $2M in grant funding provides research work for close to a dozen students and numerous networking opportunities that the students all highlight as being critical to their success. She has been active in graduate administration in the department, pushing forward numerous rule changes that her colleagues state “will make the students readier for their future roles as scholars.”.

A number of her students highlighted her role in driving their careers with one emphasizing that she encourages “us to look forward and think strategically about positioning ourselves for both academic and non-academic career opportunities.” Moreover, she has an exceptional record as a graduate instructor with her own outstanding project-based graduate seminar on Civil Conflict and International Intervention, alongside a very influential seminar on research and writing that has become “the backbone of the program.” In the time she has been on campus, she has clearly had a major impact on a large number of students. As one student states, “the political science graduates are extraordinarily lucky to have her among them.”

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty

Scott Moura, Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering

A fourth-year Assistant Professor, Scott Moura has distinguished himself as an outstanding researcher, instructor, and role model. His work focuses on maximizing the efficiency of interconnected mobility and energy networks in urban communities by developing advanced battery, building, and plug-in electric vehicle management systems. He has mentored no fewer than 25 graduate students and dozens of undergraduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and visiting scholars as the Director of the Energy, Controls and Applications Lab (eCAL). He provides a welcoming and inclusive environment for his students to thrive while ensuring that they persevere through their struggles. His colleagues enthusiastically praise his mentorship style, which enables students to overcome any academic or social barriers and “reach their full potential” to become “super-star” scholars in their field. As his first Ph.D. graduate puts it, “I have been able to achieve many technical accomplishments, obtain awards, influence the lives of others through several outreach activities, and accomplish leadership challenges which would not be possible without his guidance and dedication to my success. I will always look up to Dr. Moura as my role model.” Professor Moura serves as an inspiration to both his students and coworkers alike by his inexhaustible drive and dedication to ensure the success of those he meets, regardless of their background.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Awards for Later-Career Faculty

David Card, Class of 1950 Professor of Economics

Professor David Card is not only a world-renowned economist and founding director of the Center for Labor Economics; he is also deeply invested in the teaching mission of his department and works with a large cohort of graduate students. For them he is a generous and caring mentor, who makes himself available at all times and sees them through from the inception, when the dissertation topic is devised, until the end and beyond, when he supports them as they launch their own careers. With his unwavering support and intellectual guidance, and with his patience and compassion when students struggle, he has formed generations of Ph.D. students, many of whom who have gone on to occupy senior positions the world over. Through the lunch working group meetings and other initiatives such as the weekly “labor therapy” meetings, he has created an intense intellectual and nurturing atmosphere in which his students thrive. In his 20 years at Berkeley, he has supervised or co-supervised more than 50 Ph.D. dissertations, in addition to serving on more than 100 Ph.D. committees Professor Card has had a tremendous impact not only on many individual lives but also on the field of labor economics and microeconomics. As one supporter wrote: “One of David’s traits as advisor that I admire the most is that he does not focus exclusively on the strongest, most brilliant students. He devotes even more time to help the weakest students… write the best research [they] can possibly write.” And another: “David takes true joy in helping his graduate students succeed in the way that parents take joy in seeing their children develop, thrive, and live to their fullest potential. As he has been for scores of others, he has been a source of inspiration in my career, including my service as provost of [an Ivy League] University.”
James Vernon, Professor, History

“His passion for graduate education is peerless.” The department praises his extraordinary work as a founding director of Berkeley’s Center for British Studies, his generosity in “keep afloat entire programs, including in Middle East and South Asian history,” and his inspired graduate curriculum reforms, including his key role in the creation of a new graduate field in Global History. A distinguished scholar of modern British history, James Vernon is as admired as he is trusted by his current and former graduate students. His mentoring skills are drawn from a rich palette: he encourages intellectual independence while insisting on work that meets the highest professional standards; he inspires with his own maverick intellect while “leading from behind”; he offers close and careful criticism of student work while building student confidence; he is a constantly available presence without micro-managing. Students praise his remarkable capacity “for helping students comprehend their own minds” and for bringing “order to the chaos that so often attends ideas in their early stages of development.” Endlessly patient, full of good humor and warmth, he “never treats the muddle brought to him as a muddle” in intellectual life. Professor Vernon is dedicated to every stage of graduate student careers: developing exam fields; securing grants and navigating restrictions on archives; offering brilliant feedback on multiple dissertation drafts; and supporting all aspects of job market preparation and early career struggles. His students have gone on to sterling academic positions, and never fail to mention the way that his humanity and compassion helped them to thrive and succeed. As one former student, now on the tenure track at a renowned Eastern college, wrote: “For all of us, James is the complete package. He’s the full-service wash and the all-season radial, the headlight on the foggy road and the roadmap for the lost. He’s the mentor with the mostest. It’s about time we told him.”

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty

Laura Waller, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In only her fourth year as an Assistant Professor, Laura Waller has already distinguished herself not only as a scientist but also as a graduate mentor. Professor Waller is an expert in the field of computational imaging, having invented a novel approach to optical systems. She runs a collaborative and interdisciplinary laboratory that her students have described as a great pedagogical and working environment. She garnered no fewer than 27 nominations for this award from graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and undergraduates. She provides the necessary support and training that allows her students to achieve a high level of productivity, and also shows compassion when students are struggling. A graduate student dealing with difficult life circumstances referred to Professor Waller as a savior, stating “it is because of her capacity to look past failure and to use failure as a means for discovering truth, that I was able to get past my own professional and personal roadblocks.” Professor Waller epitomizes an ideal graduate mentor, providing – in the words of several current graduate students – the creative insight, vision, career opportunities, enthusiasm, and encouragement for graduate studies at Berkeley.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Later-Career Faculty

Catherine Albiston, Professor, Berkeley Law

Professor Catherine Albiston, a leading scholar in socio-legal studies, is a shining example of what it means to be a “student-centered” professor at UC Berkeley. Not only does she help her advisees fulfill their dreams but she also supports graduate students throughout the program in Jurisprudence and Social Policy (JSP). Her formal contributions to student life in JSP range from co-founder of the JSP Diversity Committee to Job Placement Coordinator to Head Graduate Advisor to Graduate Equity Advisor. Her students appreciate that she demands academic excellence and provides the means to achieve it with rigorous, timely critique of their scholarship and a nurturing, family-friendly environment. As a former advisee noted: “She never fails to provide both the most incisive critique you’ll get on a paper and the most constructive and helpful suggestions for redeeming yourself.” Professor Albiston’s mentorship is not limited to her advisees. Several of the nominators noted the exceptional nature of her input as a committee member and second reader. Others mentioned the “tremendous boon” that she provided by establishing a new interdisciplinary writing workshop in JSP that helped graduate students at all stages of their studies to hone their craft. Professor Albiston inspires both her students and colleagues by her commitment to the next generation of scholars.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty

Alison Post, Assistant Professor, Political Science, and Global Metropolitan Studies

Applying intelligence, professional experience, and smiling kindness, Professor Alison Post has distinguished herself as a leading graduate student mentor in Political Science and related disciplines. Setting an example for other junior professors in balancing research with service, Professor Post understands that true mentorship is not an academic exercise. She combines brilliance in her own research and an interdisciplinary perspective with a proven talent for keeping the student’s confidence intact, even as she moves them beyond their intellectual comfort zones. As one appreciative Ph.D. candidate remarked, “Alison is both a demanding advisor and a trusted mentor who always has my best intellectual and professional interests at heart.” Professor Post is respected for helping to orient students long before their arrival at UC Berkeley, for continuing to help others as they move through the dissertation process,for joining with her students in co-authored papers, and for providing ongoing advice as the graduates move into the professional world. She exemplifies humane compassion without sacrificing a demand that her students reach for the highest level of academic accomplishment and professional integrity. Professor Post understands that quality scholarship and a balanced life go hand in hand. An important role model for women in the field of Political Science, Alison Post is an inspiration to many.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Later-Career Faculty

Edward Miguel, Professor, Economics

Edward Miguel combines his passions for excellence in scholarly research and his outstanding classroom teaching in a novel model of graduate mentorship. Professor Miguel implements interdisciplinary, community-based mentoring that has been successful in guiding a large and diverse group of graduate students. This model is being replicated elsewhere across the country. A nominator wrote: “Professor Miguel creates communities of open and constructive exchange among his students and within the broader research community.” In doing so he has transformed the field of development economics into one of the most thriving fields of study in the Economics Department, largely through his mentoring of graduate students. Professor Miguel devotes a great deal of time and effort to mentoring these students to achieve their maximum potential, deeply engaging with his students and their work while also providing numerous opportunities for professional development. He has been an innovator in introducing the rigors of data science to his students, placing his advisees among an elite group of young economists who are experimenting with new norms and methods. He is notable for advising his students through all stages of their successful careers, whether in academia, government, NGOs, or the private sector. Edward Miguel’s commitment to human development, evidenced both in his own research and his investment in Berkeley graduate students, makes him an outstanding mentor.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career Faculty

Clayton Critcher, Assistant Professor, Haas School of Business

Clayton Critcher’s effect as a mentor is immediate and enduring; he is both rigorous and caring; he is patient, while holding those around him to high ethical standards. Since his arrival at Berkeley in 2010, he has had a transformative impact on the atmosphere around him at Haas, bringing a spirit of collaboration to a diverse and independent set of people. The weekly lab meetings he instituted soon after his arrival have become an intense hub of intellectual connection, drawing people not only from the Haas School, but from other Berkeley departments such as Psychology, as well as from other institutions. Both in those lab meetings and in his one-on-one interactions, he shares his intense intellectual gifts with characteristic warmth and generosity. If he demands intellectual rigor, he also provides emotional and social support. Within minutes of meeting someone, he will inevitably be brainstorming with them about ideas and methods. From that initial moment on, he is a dependable presence in his students’ lives. His feedback is a steady resource at every stage of a project. His enthusiasm and collaborative spirit help sustain the energy of his collaborators and push them to new levels of rigor and intellectual sophistication. His particular combination of brilliance and devotion have, in very short order, made him an outstanding mentor of graduate students.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Later-Career Faculty

Cathryn Carson, Professor, History

Professor Cathryn Carson is an exceptional mentor and an outstanding scholar, while also finding time to provide significant Campus service as Associate Dean, Social Sciences and (until 2009) Director of Office for History of Science and Technology. She has managed to turn these commitments into opportunities for her students to engage with recent developments in their field and to contribute to the social sciences. Her students praise her attentiveness and warmth; her ability to refer to conversations with students from months and even years earlier shows the thought she puts into their interactions. Her exacting standards and extreme care for detail are evident in her mentoring style, as in her research. The clarity and precision of her feedback to students is legendary, helping to instill in them confidence in their own work: “If Cathryn okays it, it must be good.” While helping students become scholars, she teaches by example how to be a colleague and a professional. She provides emotional support and wise advice for students confronting personal or professional difficulties. In all respects she is an exemplary mentor.

Linda Williams, Professor, Film and Media Studies and Rhetoric

Linda Williams has led an illustrious career at UC Berkeley and beyond, exploring controversial topics, teaching in Film and Media studies, and currently holding a joint appoint in Film and in Rhetoric. Noted and praised for being committed to her graduate students’ success and mastery of all aspects of their field, including teaching, Linda has supported many of her students to go on to become excellent academic instructors while fostering their individual development with wisdom and alacrity. Whether working closely with students for Qualifying Exams, mentoring, or organizing the Visual Cultures Writing Group to help cultivate their academic writing, her students note her warmth, joy and passion for helping people flourish. Again and again Linda’s ability to give valuable practical advice and her generosity with her time have been distinguished as endearing her to her students, colleagues and contemporaries. Her advice travels with them long beyond their time at Berkeley, supporting them into their futures and future careers.

Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career 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 Later-Career 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.

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career 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 Later-Career 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.

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career 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 Later-Career 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.

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career 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.

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career 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.

Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Early-Career 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.

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 Early-Career 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.