The transformative education offered at the University of Chicago begins in the classroom, with the teachers who inspire, engage and inform their students.
UChicago annually recognizes faculty for their incredible teaching and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students through the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, believed to be the nation’s oldest prize for undergraduate teaching; and the Faculty Awards for Excellence in Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring, which honor faculty for their work with graduate students.
Learn more about this year’s recipients below:
- Quantrell Awards: David Cash, Eleonory Gilburd, Lenore Grenoble, Cathy Pfister
- Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring Awards: John Birge, Bryan Dickinson, Timothy Harrison, Kay Macleod and Alex Shaw
Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Awards
David Cash, Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the College
David Cash remembers the moment that changed his understanding of math completely. It was in an undergraduate course in discrete mathematics, he said, where he realized the field was more than a row of rote problems to solve over and over.
“Instead, these were problems where I would read two sentences and then walk around and think about it for the rest of the afternoon,” he said. “I learned how to sit with a problem and genuinely enjoy being stuck. I find it so joyful, and the peace and simplicity that comes with it compared to everything else in life.”
He loved it so much that this is now what he does for a living, as a mathematically oriented computer scientist—and now that he teaches his own discrete mathematics class, he tries to pass that fascination on to the students.
According to his students, it works. One wrote: “His genuine passion for the material was so contagious that now I intend on specializing in theoretical computer science.”
Cash tries to structure every class around a hook, whether it’s demonstrating the birthday paradox; how hackers exploit buggy code; unpacking how number theory underlies the encryption behind our everyday internet transactions; or exploring the story of the World War II Enigma code machine that was broken by Polish mathematicians.
But his enthusiasm is paired with a wholehearted willingness to work with anyone who’s struggling.
“Some of the best experiences for me happen when students struggle with the material a little bit, or even a lot. With a little help they usually wind up solving the problems themselves,” Cash said. “It’s really nice to see someone on day one who’s still learning the basic grammar of math, then solving pretty hard problems only a few weeks later.
“Being able to tell someone, ‘Oh, you actually seem to be really good at this,’ when they haven’t realized it for themselves—that’s such a privilege.”
Eleonory Gilburd, Associate Professor of History and the College
To Eleonory Gilburd, history is not only the collection of facts from a specific moment in the past, but something that changes with both time and perspective.
“I bring archival items to class and we talk about how interpretations change under the impact of these discoveries,” said Gilburd. “The kind of things that we read in textbooks isn’t the final truth, just the current consensus. What is now a fact was once upon a time an interpretation, perhaps a very controversial one.”
Gilburd takes the purpose of a liberal arts education seriously and wants her students to examine the topics that they cover in each of her classes with a critical eye. She specialized in modern Russian and Soviet history, teaching courses on the two from a comparative perspective while also leading a Russia and Eurasia sequence in Civilization Studies.
Gilburd appreciates “the opportunity to reach back to the 10th or 11th centuries in the Russia and Eurasia sequence,” while not focusing solely on the distant past. She also enjoys the ability to place Russia in a comparative perspective in her course “How Dictatorships Come to Power” in which students can “step to the side and examine the Soviet experience in a broader context.”
As a UChicago alumna, Gilburd knows what it takes to complete an undergraduate degree here. She has also been able to hone her teaching skills over the past decade on campus by learning from former instructors turned colleagues, such as fellow history Prof. Steven Pincus, Jan Goldstein, Michael Geyer and John Boyer.
“The professors always took our interpretation of history seriously and engaged with our arguments in earnest,” Gilburd recalled. “That’s very important. That helped shape me both as a student and professor.”
It is that experience that she tries to recreate in each of her courses. Gilburd does this through historiography—the study of the writing of history—and uses archival documents and other primary sources to give students the tools to develop their own perspectives. One way in which she does this is by playing songs in her Soviet classes to build an emotional connection to the past.
“When we study 20th century history, we have a rare ability to hear the past, to immerse ourselves in the sounds that surrounded our subjects,” said Gilburd. “If you play Soviet songs, you can capture the emotional charge and cultural changes from year to year, decade to decade. I would feel remiss if my classes didn’t take this opportunity since it literally allows you to hear the past.”
By the time each course reaches its conclusion at the end of the quarter, Gilburd has just one lesson that she hopes her students will have learned—to keep exploring.
“I don’t have a big message. I only hope that my class has ignited enough interest for students to explore its topics on their own, to read further. I am always happy to recommend additional readings as well as to welcome students back to discuss what they’ve read.”
Some of her students are taking her up on that. One wrote that Gilburd is a “truly wonderful mentor to study under” with vast knowledge of her field.
“What is more, she is willing to expend immense amounts of time and energy to learn about subjects she is not as familiar with for the benefit of students,” the student wrote. “[She] goes above and beyond in tailoring advice and feedback to each individual student.”
Lenore Grenoble, the John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Linguistics
Lenore Grenoble sees the world through language. The linguist pushes her students to look beyond words to examine the assumptions we make about how others speak.
“I feel it's really, really important that students take some linguistics,” she said. “Not just because I'm a linguist, but because we're humans, and language is integral to being human.”
Originally trained in Slavic linguistics, Grenoble now conducts fieldwork across the globe, focusing on the Arctic (Greenland and Siberia), and occasionally Cameroon and Senegal, taking students along when possible.
She currently studies language shift and endangerment, which happens when children stop learning a language and switch, typically, to the dominant one in their region.
“In general, people shift because of economic pressure, social pressure, historical issues, and trauma,” she said. “That is a serious issue, both socially and scientifically.”
In the College, Grenoble teaches several introductory courses that lay the technical foundation for how to analyze language. She also teaches in the study abroad program.
“I really believe in study abroad,” Grenoble said. “It can change your whole life.”
In Senegal’s capital Dakar, Grenoble teaches the final segment of the African Civilization sequence, where she weaves together language, cultural studies and history. Her students noted the “exciting energy” that “lit up our class,” uncovering a love of language in a group of non-linguists.
“She brought her knowledge of linguistics and culture into conversation with Dakar's diverse language landscape,” wrote one student, “pushing us to think about language as more than just the words we use, but as a tool to enter the different facets of Senegalese culture.”
Grenoble says the success of a class is “a joint endeavor.” She encourages students to actively listen outside of class and bring interesting examples to share and analyze.
“She took time to engage with all of us on a personal level and gave us space to explore and discuss topics that were of interest to us,” a student noted.
Her advice to students, perhaps unsurprisingly, is about communication: Be bold, take different classes and talk to faculty.
“When you talk to faculty, you learn more,” she said. “We're in this together.”
Cathy Pfister, Professor of Ecology and Evolution
For ecologist Cathy Pfister, it’s all about hands-on learning.
For the past decade and a half, her yearly Ecology and Conservation class has gone on a weekend trip to the nearby Indiana Dunes National Park, where they are steeped in what it means to get data on ecosystems.
“You’re getting in the water and catching things with nets, you’re taking censes of plants for hours,” she said. “It’s hard work, but it’s rewarding.”
They’re following in the footsteps of UChicago history—the Indiana Dunes are where famed scientist Henry Chandler Cowles performed the studies that led him to propose the idea of ecological succession, a foundational concept in ecology.
But the students’ outdoor experience doesn’t end there. They also travel to the UChicago Warren Woods Ecological Field Station in Michigan, and to Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie to explore how the return of indigenous bison influenced the ecosystem. Even in Hyde Park, they perform a census of insect populations.
“It’s really important to me that students understand where data comes from,” Pfister explained.
She wants students to know how we know what we know about ecosystems. But the skill applies beyond the field itself.
“What they’re learning is how you evaluate evidence, and how to understand whether something is supported or not by evidence,” she said. “That is something that will come up again and again in everyday life.”
Arranging so many trips means a lot of logistics, but to Pfister it’s worth it.
“The undergraduates at the University of Chicago are a very motivated and motivating group of students,” she said. “I enjoy talking with them, I enjoy challenging them, and I enjoy seeing the questions they bring to me. More than once, their questions have made me think of things in a new light.”
Faculty Awards for Excellence in Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring
John Birge, the Hobart W. Williams Distinguished Service Professor of Operations Management
John Birge asks his Ph.D. advisees a critical question: What are you really passionate about?
“’What is it that you have a drive to learn more about, that can allow you to have some impact on the world?’ I try to build on that."
Birge’s own passion for his advisees’ research and growth resonates with those Ph.D. students.
“John is thoughtful, intentional about his actions, and passionate about the success of his mentees and students,” wrote one former student. “He not only sets high expectations for his students but also goes the extra mile to help them achieve their goals.”
Birge’s former students also appreciate his warmth and approachability.
“He is genuinely interested in the well-being of his students and is always open to discussing broader topics, whether personal aspirations, career paths, or even casual topics about life,” wrote another former student. “This openness fosters a sense of trust and camaraderie that makes his mentorship not just intellectually enriching but also personally meaningful.”
Birge credits his own Ph.D. advisor, the late George Dantzig, with shaping key elements of his approach to research and mentorship.
“He told me that everything you did should be inspired by something in reality, something in practice,” Birge said.
Birge’s own research focuses on mathematical modeling of systems under uncertainty, especially for maximizing operational and financial goals—inspired by the lessons he learned from Dantzig.
“I always try to root my students in looking at things that are going around, that are happening in the environment, and using that to inspire their research,” he said.
Bryan Dickinson, Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the UChicago Comprehensive Cancer Center
When grad students enter Bryan Dickinson’s lab, they aren’t learning to one day be scientists, he says: they are already scientists.
“From day one, we’re going to pick some important science to do and you’re going to spend years figuring out how to do it, and you’ll learn from going through that journey,” says Dickinson. “The only way to become a scientist is to do science, and the more you do, the more you will get the intuition and approach that makes you a good scientist.”
In Dickinson’s lab, students and postdocs blend chemistry, biology, and engineering to create new technologies for health and medicine—an unusual approach that Dickinson describes as a “chaotic soup of science.”
It’s deliberate because Dickinson wants students to choose a problem they care about and then go after it, regardless of prior expertise.
“For Bryan, it's so important that we feel ownership over our work. He wants every person in a group to feel like we are pursuing our own ideas, as opposed to working on a project cooked up by him or someone else,” a nominator wrote.
The members of his lab are encouraged to be creative and try risky ideas—knowing that many or even most experiments fail. But this approach works because Dickinson is deliberate about building an environment where failures are normal, expected, and supported.
He checks in with each student frequently, offering guidance and a ready ear; a former student wrote, “His ability to motivate, uplift, and instill confidence in his students is one of his greatest strengths—a skill I now seek to emulate in my own mentoring.”
But he also encourages other members of his lab to do the same with each other. Another nominator wrote: “His energetic, encouraging attitude permeates the lab. My labmates constantly share questions, suggestions, and excitement over each other’s projects. Science is hard, so doing it alongside genuine cheerleaders makes a huge difference.”
“For me, this is really an award for the culture that me and my group have built together,” Dickinson said.
Timothy Harrison, Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature and the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought
During Tim Harrison’s “open office hours,” students can use the book-lined room to work and chat. His early modern reading group—for a time held in his apartment—is a gathering space for faculty and students to tackle 900-page primary texts together.
“The aim is to create a learning community,” said Harrison, who focuses primarily on 16th and 17th century English literature, “to foster an environment where people are experimenting together.”
Harrison is also purposeful about crafting his classroom space, constantly looking for ways to get students to talk to rather than past each other. Instead of asking students to post comments, he requires them to submit questions to guide the discussion.
“The goal for every class, whether it's graduate or undergraduate, is that everybody leaves the room having come up with ideas that would have been impossible for any of us to have achieved outside of that class,” Harrison said. “And that would include me.”
Harrison specializes in early modern poetry and has written extensively on John Donne and John Milton. He investigates how poetry helps generate knowledge—how it interacts with other disciplines such as philosophy and theology.
“I'm interested in trying to create an intellectual world for the authors that I study,” he said.
Harrison credits his academic path to great teachers. From their example, he learned to “prioritize relationships” as a mentor.
“It's a matter of trying to carve out, over the months and years, a relationship that works for the student,” Harrison said. “Because different students need different things.”
To help one student get out of a difficult period of dissertation writing, Harrison sent his own work-in-progress each day to demystify the process and show how messy writing can be.
“It emphasized for me the importance of simply keeping the faith and chasing the work,” the student wrote.
Harrison is known as a “kind, empathetic, and encouraging reader” who will go to great lengths for his students. “I suspect he would give me the shirt off his back if he thought it would help my writing!” one student noted.
“He has pushed me to become a better scholar,” wrote another student. “More than this, though, he has pushed me to become a better person and member of the community here, too.”
Kay Macleod, the Hospira Foundation Professor in the Ben May Department of Cancer Research
Kay Macleod says that it can be a challenge balancing the demands of teaching with managing an active research lab, but one of the biggest benefits of doing both is that each activity feeds the other.
“I'll always get asked questions in class that surprise me, and that make me re-evaluate the impact or importance of a particular aspect of research,” she said. “But what's also important the other way around is, if you're not deeply in the research, you're not going to be keeping the educational content of your classes up to date. It's so important to stay current as we seek to inspire the next generation.”
One of the main reasons Macleod says it’s important to stay current is because the students themselves are changing along with the subject matter. Macleod took the helm of a graduate training program in cancer biology, supported by a T32 grant from the National Cancer Institute, in 2013. Since then, she says graduate students are much more likely to be pursuing basic science careers beyond academia, whether that be in the pharmaceutical industry or in government service.
In response, she has added classes that focus on translating discoveries in the lab to clinical applications and treatments for patients. This includes guest lectures by instructors from the Chicago Booth School of Business and the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation on how to pitch ideas to venture capitalists or find collaborative partners elsewhere in industry.
“We’re training these students to think about the clinical and translational relevance of their own research project, where they take their own graduate research project and push it to the next level, whether that be a new diagnostic or therapeutic or even a new computational algorithm for quantifying data more rapidly and effectively as we see in AI approaches” Macleod said.
Despite the changing focus of students over the years, however, some things always stay the same. “They're all driven by the passion for scientific discovery and the excitement of new data they just got from a cool experiment. Watching that transition in a grad student as they become independent researchers is something I always find very rewarding,” she said.
Alex Shaw, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology
Alex Shaw is a fast talker and an even faster thinker. Among his students, he’s known for his infectious excitement and for using lightning-quick reasoning to test a new idea.
“I love talking about ideas,” Shaw said. “I think what’s most useful to students (even ones I don’t mentor) is having somebody to talk to about their project for an hour. And that's my favorite thing to do.”
He finds it most rewarding to show students that complex questions that seem unanswerable can be answered with rigorous experimentation.
“I can see it on the students' faces when they recognize how powerful it can be to be able to really carefully design an experiment,” Shaw said.
Shaw studies fairness, morality and reputation, using randomization and delicate experimental design to understand how people manage the trade-offs that pull us in opposite directions. Do we remain loyal to our friends even at the expense of our own morals? Or lie if it makes us look honest?
As for his own reputation, Shaw is known for his “extraordinary thoughtfulness” and the “incredible amount of time and effort” he spends on his students throughout their graduate careers and beyond.
The key to mentoring, Shaw says, is understanding that one size does not fit all. Some students need deadlines, while others need a calming voice. This supportive, tailor-made approach is known for bringing out the best in his mentees.
“He has high standards for our writing, our conference presentations, and our research ideas because he knows we are capable, intelligent scholars,” said a current Ph.D. student. “When we present him with a research question, he says, ‘That’s great! What’s Study Two?’”
In the lab, Shaw serves as an advisor, but also considers himself a collaborator, working with students to design and test ideas they’ve built upon together.
“I have learned a great deal from Alex,” said a former student, “and from working with Alex.”
—With contributions by Tori Lee, Louise Lerner, Colin Terrill, Sam Jemielity and Matt Wood.
—A version of this story is published on the University of Chicago College website.
