2025 Award Winners

The Faculty Mentoring Award recognizes senior faculty who have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to faculty mentoring through their work with tenure-track and mid-career faculty in developing their careers. Exceptional mentoring can include offering advice, feedback and guidance on research activities, coaching on work-life balance issues, providing professional opportunities for mentees, and/or assisting in development of teaching skills. The Faculty Mentoring Award honors the outstanding mentoring legacy of Columbia Business School Professor Katherine W. Phillips.

2025 Faculty Mentoring Award

Daniel Westervelt is currently a Lamont Associate Research Professor at Columbia Climate School’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, NY. He is a Columbia University Climate and Life Fellow leading a project on air pollution and climate change in Africa, an affiliated scientist with the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York, NY, and an air pollution advisor to the US State Department. Prior to Lamont, he worked as a Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy (STEP) postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. Westervelt completed his PhD degree in May 2013 in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Axel Honneth is Jack C. Weinstein Professor for the Humanities in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University, and the Director of the Institute for Social Research and C4-Professor of Social Philosophy at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. Honneth studied Philosophy, Sociology, and German Literature at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and Ruhr-Universität Bochum, earning his MA in Philosophy in 1974, and his postgraduate studies were at Freie Universität Berlin. Honneth is the recipient of the Ernst Bloch-Preis from the City of Ludwigshafen, the Bruno-Kreisky Prize from the Karl-Renner Stiftung in Vienna. In June 2016, Honneth was awarded the Ulysses Medal, University College Dublin’s highest honour, for his lifetime contribution to social philosophy and critical theory. Axel Honneth’s books include The Struggle for Recognition, Freedom’s Right, The Idea of Socialism, and Recognition. He has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 2018-19 and has delivered the Tanner Lectures 2004-05 at UC Berkeley.

The Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student was established in 1996 to recognize and celebrate graduate students who exemplify excellence in teaching. To receive this award is a great honor, as it demonstrates commitment to excellent and often innovative teaching as recognized by the entire Columbia community. Prospective recipients are nominated by their students and peers. From that pool, the faculty members on the Teaching Awards Committee select the final awardees.

2025 Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student

Tamara Hache (’21MPhil, Latin American and Iberian Cultures) earned a BA in Literature from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she specialized in literary theory and nineteenth-century Argentine literature. Hache’s doctoral research focuses on the spatial, visual, and graphic inflections of war infrastructures and infrastructural imaginations in the context of nineteenth-century print culture of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Currently a Teaching Fellow at Columbia, Hache has extensive teaching experience at both the high school and college levels. At Columbia, she has taught language classes, designed and led content courses both on specific topics of Latin American literature and Latin American literature survey classes, and served as a Core Preceptor for Literature Humanities. Hache has worked as a fellow for the Center for Teaching and Learning and led pedagogy seminar series both at a local and national level, mentoring peers and faculty. 

In recognition of exceptional commitment to scholarship, mentorship, service, and advocacy

The Dr. Devon T. Wade Mentorship, Service, and Advocacy Award is presented annually to a Master’s or doctoral student in any Arts and Sciences discipline who most exemplifies a commitment to community-building and mentoring as demonstrated by the late Dr. Devon T. Wade. Recipients receive a $1,500 prize in recognition of their achievements.

About Dr. Wade

The award was established in 2018 in honor of the life and work of Dr. Devon T. Wade. Wade enrolled in the PhD program in sociology at Columbia University in 2011 and came to be recognized as being among the University’s most gifted doctoral students. Wade’s dissertation research focused on stigma, trauma, and discipline in the school setting. He received multiple awards for his promising scholarship, including the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. 

Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts of Sciences awarded the doctoral degree to Devon Wade posthumously, in recognition of his scholarly achievements and of the impact he made on others through his research, mentorship, service, and advocacy. Dr. Wade was passionate about teaching and creating inclusive learning environments, and advocating for those who experience marginalization in society. In his work he was particularly focused on the collateral consequences of incarceration on individuals and communities.  Dr. Wade was also deeply devoted to building networks of support and mentorship for students from groups that historically have been underrepresented in the academy. He was a founding member of the Columbia University Graduate Students of Color Alliance (SoCA). 

Umiemah Farrukh

Umiemah Farrukh (’25MA, South Asian Studies) received her BA in Psychology with honors from UCLA and her AA from El Camino College. While at UCLA she was the recipient of the UCLA Chancellor’s Service Award, UCLA Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Leadership Award, Dean’s Award for Life Science Research, the Dean’s Honor List, and a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates internship. She is the co-founder and CFO of the Farrukh Foundation, a non-profit building schools to increase access to education for young Muslim children in third-world and Western countries. She is the recipient of a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship from the Department of Education, and she co-founded Columbia’s South Asian Graduate Student Council.

The Outstanding Recent Alumni Award honors individuals who have graduated within the past fifteen years and have excelled in the early stages of their careers, exemplifying what GSAS alumni can achieve. Since 2015, this award has been presented annually to one doctoral graduate and one Master’s graduate.

2025 Outstanding Recent Alumni Award

Tyshawn Sorey (’17DMA, Music Composition) earned a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies and Performance from William Paterson University, a Masters in Music Composition from Wesleyan University, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in composition from Columbia University. In 2020, Sorey joined the composition faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. Sorey’s improvisatory compositions are celebrated for their virtuosic movement between quiet emotionality and ferocious cacophony, drawing on 20^th century classical composition and the rich tradition of black American music. His work has been performed in venues including the Library of Congress, Lincoln Center, Park Avenue Armory, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Among other accolades, he is a Pew Fellow, Macarthur Fellow and a United States Artists Fellow, and the winner of the Koussevitzky Foundation Prize. In 2023, his composition Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and in 2024, he was named the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Music winner for Adagio (for Wadada Leo Smith).

Gaisu Yari (’18MA, Human Rights Studies) is a storyteller, advocate, and gender justice expert whose personal experience has driven her to raise awareness about women’s rights in Afghanistan, Iran and the Middle East. A graduate of the University of Virginia and Columbia, she previously served as Afghanistan's Appeals Board Civil Service Commissioner. In 2021, when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, she founded Afghan Voices of Hope, an oral history project that has allowed her to amplify the voices of women and girls, both those who have fled the country to exile and those still living under the regime. Yari is currently a Visiting Scholar at Clark University and has spoken at numerous international conferences, collaborated with global organizations, and worked with the media to raise awareness about the critical issues facing women and girls. Her public speaking engagements and advocacy efforts have centered on women's rights, leadership, and the power of storytelling for social change.

The Dean’s Award for Distinguished Achievement recognizes accomplished recipients for their profound impact not only on academia, but on the world at large. This award has been presented annually since 1997, and in each year since 1998, it has been presented to one doctoral graduate and one Master’s graduate.

2025 Dean's Award for Distinguished Achievement

Gregory Lawrence Verdine (’86PhD, Chemistry) is a pioneer in the field of chemical biology, a serial biotech entrepreneur, and a life science venture capitalist. Upon graduating from Columbia, he was an NIH postdoctoral fellow in molecular biology at MIT and Harvard Medical School. In 1988, he joined the faculty at Harvard University, where he is now Erving Professor of Chemistry in the Departments of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology and Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Verdine is the inventor of stapled peptides, a new class of therapeutics which treat diseases previously thought “undruggable.” He has co-founded numerous biotechnology companies, including Enanta, Gloucester, Aileron Therapeutics, and WaVe Life Sciences. He is also a Venture Partner with Apple Tree Partners, Third Rock Ventures, and WuXi Healthcare Ventures, and a Special Advisor to Texas Pacific Group. Gregory Verdine serves on the Board of Scientific Consultants of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Research Institute and on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the National Cancer Institute. He is the co-founder of the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute, where high school graduates are trained for careers in biotechnology. Verdine is the recipient of an honorary doctor of science degree from Clarkson University, and the University of Chicago’s Herman S. Bloch Award. He is the winner of the AACR Award for Excellence in Chemistry in Cancer Research, and the Nobel Laureate Signature Award.

Colonel Matthew Bogdanos (’84MA, Classical Studies) earned his law degree and MA at Columbia, then earned another MA in Strategic Studies from the United States Army War College. Colonel Bogdanos has served as a military lawyer and a marine reservist. In 2001, after the September 11 attacks, he was recalled to active duty in the US Marine Corps, and received a Bronze Star. In recognition of his work investigating the looting of Baghdad’s Iraq Museum, he was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush in 2005. That same year, he published a memoir co-written with William Patrick chronicling his work in Iraq, Thieves of Baghdad: One Marine’s Passion to Recover the World’s Greatest Stolen Treasures. Since 1988, Bogdanos has been an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, where he continues to serve as Senior Homicide Trial Counsel. In 2017, he founded the Antiquities Trafficking Unit, a first-of-its-kind task force that brings together analysts and prosecutors to track stolen artwork sold on the black market. He has led the recovery of thousands of antiquities, totaling more than $400 million, which have been repatriated to countries around the world, including Cambodia, Thailand, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Italy, and Greece. He is the co-founder of Battle of the Barristers, a Charity Boxing Foundation that has raised more than $1 million for wounded veterans and children at risk.

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences has a special admiration for intellectual inquiry that reaches beyond academia to change the world at large. The Dean’s Award for Lifetime Achievement is presented to a GSAS alumnus or alumna whose accomplishments over years and decades have made an impact on the lives of others and the greater good. 

2025 Dean's Award for Lifetime Achievement

Christina Hull Paxson (’87PhD, Economics) graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Swarthmore College and a doctorate in Economics from Columbia University. After receiving her PhD, she was an assistant professor at Princeton for over twenty-five years, and served as the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs and the Hughes Professor of economics and Public Affairs. While at the Wilson School, she founded and directed their Center for Health and Wellbeing, and the Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging.

Paxson was named the 19^th President of Brown University in 2012 and is a professor of economics and public policy. During her tenure as President, Brown has had consecutive record-setting years of philanthropic support, and established a new School of Public Health, the Brown Arts Institute, and Institute at Brown for Environment in Society. She has overseen the expansion of financial assistance, including The Brown Promise, which replaces loans with scholarships in all undergraduate aid packages.

She has served as the chair of the board of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Association of American Universities, and the American Council of Education. In 2017, Paxson was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Christina Paxson has received an honorary doctor of laws from Williams University, a Business Leadership Award from the Providence Business News, and a Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence from the TIAA Institute.