Teaching Prizes

Graduate students in good standing in a Ph. D. program who have served in Yale College as Teaching Fellows (TFs) or Part-Time Acting Instructors (PTAIs) in the current academic year are eligible for nomination for Prize Teaching Fellowships.

The awards will be based upon excellence in performance as TFs or PTAIs , as attested to by undergraduate students and by supervising faculty. To be eligible for selection, graduate students must be making satisfactory progress towards the Ph.D. degree, as shown in the Dissertation Progress Report filed with the Graduate School.  

Selection will be made in the spring by a committee co-chaired by the Director of the Teaching Fellow Program in the Graduate School and an Associate Dean of Yale College.

Lecturers or lectors, seminar or section leaders, lab instructors, and professors are eligible for teaching prizes if they have a teaching appointment in the faculty of arts and sciences, have taught for at least three years, and have received at least two nominations. 

Members of the Teaching, Learning, and Advising Committee are not eligible.

The Prize Teaching Fellowship recognizes up to ten graduate students per year for their outstanding performance and promise as teachers. It is considered among the highest honors that Yale bestows upon its graduate students.  The Fellowship is awarded based on undergraduate student and supervising faculty evaluations. The Fellowship carries a cash prize of $3000, awarded in the spring, and the recipients are honored at an annual dinner hosted by the Deans of the Graduate School and the College.  Prize Teaching Fellows also receive a certificate during the Convocation ceremony during their commencement year.

The Nomination Process

Students in Yale College may nominate graduate students enrolled in a Ph.D. program whom they had as a Teaching Fellow (TF) or Part-Time Acting Instructor (PTAI) in an undergraduate course in either the fall or spring term.

Twice a year, at the end of the fall term and in the middle of the spring term, the Yale College Dean’s Office will invite Yale College students by email to nominate TFs. To avoid potential conflicts of interest, graduate student instructors should not solicit their students for nominations but, if asked by undergraduates how to go about making a nomination, they should instead refer to this website.

Nominations need not be long, but they should be detailed enough about how a TF or PTAI has excelled as an instructor rather than express general platitudes of enthusiasm. This is not a popularity contest or an election in which determination is made merely on the number of nominations received. The selection committee reads the letters of nomination and pays attention to the quality rather than just the quantity of information it receives.

Once student nominations have been received and sorted, the selection committee will contact relevant departments and seek a letter of support from the TF or PTAI’s supervising course instructor. The DUS, DGS, Chair, or other departmental officer of the program sponsoring the course may also provide supporting information. These additional materials help the selection committee make its final choices from among those nominated by undergraduates.

Letters of nomination must include the full name of the graduate student being nominated for the Prize Teaching Fellowship, the name or number of the course in which the graduate student taught, and the term (fall or spring) in which it was offered.

Deadlines

The deadline for receipt of letters of nomination is noon on March 23, 2026. Selection will be made in the spring by a committee co-chaired by the Director of the Teaching Fellow Program in the Graduate School and an Associate Dean of Yale College. Prize winners will be notified in April.

The Yale College Faculty awards five prizes annually for excellence in undergraduate teaching to instructors who have been nominated by students, departments, and programs, and recommended by the Teaching, Learning, and Advising Committee.

Three first three prizes, created in  1981, are awarded to ladder faculty in Yale College who have taught at Yale for three years:

The Yale College-Sidonie Miskimin Clauss Prize

Awarded for excellence in the Humanities

The Lex Hixon ‘63 Prize

Awarded for teaching excellence in the Social Sciences

The Dylan Hixon ‘88 Prize

Awarded for Teaching Excellence in the Natural Sciences

The fourth prize, created in 1989 and renamed in 2004 in honor of former Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead, is awarded to an instructor who has held the title of Lecturer, Lector, Senior Lecturer, Senior Lector, or Adjunct Professor for at least three years:

The Richard H. Brodhead ‘68 Teaching Prize

Awarded for Teaching Excellence by a Lector or a Lecturer

The fifth prize, established in 1993 by an anonymous alumnus in the Class of 1942, is awarded to “a teacher in Yale College who has given the most time, energy, and effective effort to helping undergraduates learn.”

The Harwood F. Byrnes / Richard B. Sewall Teaching Prize

The Teaching, Learning, and Advising Committee regards this as an award to be given to a “towering figure” in undergraduate education, someone who over a long period of service has inspired a great number of students and consistently fostered the learning process both inside and outside the classroom.

Additional Faculty Prizes

The Poorvu Family Fund for Academic Innovation

Every summer, the Yale College Dean’s Office asks FAS Department Chairs and Directors of Interdisciplinary Programs in Yale College to nominate untenured instructors for the Poorvu Prize. Established by the Poorvu family to recognize and to enhance Yale’s strength in interdisciplinary teaching, the award is made to outstanding untenured faculty members who have demonstrated excellence in teaching in interdisciplinary undergraduate programs.

In additional to paying tribute to the excellence of their teaching, the award also provides junior faculty members with research funds that allows them to devote the summer months to research essential to their development as scholars and teachers. On the basis of nominations from chairs and directors of interdisciplinary programs, the Dean of Yale College will award one or more prizes. Preference is given to candidates who have been on the Yale faculty for at least two years as of the following July 1.

William Clyde DeVane Award

The Yale Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa awards teaching prizes to honor the memory of William Clyde DeVane, Dean of Yale College from 1938 to 1963. The awards recognize character, scholarship, and distinguished undergraduate teaching. The Yale Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa makes two DeVane Awards annually. One is to a retired member of the Yale College Faculty selected by the graduate officers and graduate advisers of the society. The other is to an active member of the faculty who has taught at Yale for at least five years; this recipient is elected by the members of the senior class in Phi Beta Kappa. The DeVane Awards are presented at the chapter dinner of Phi Beta Kappa in the spring.
Previous Winners can be seen on the Yale Phi Beta Kappa website.

Please note: previous Graduate Student teaching prize winners are listed on the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Science website.

Previous faculty winners of teaching prizes awarded on the basis of nominations from undergraduate students enrolled in their courses.

Lex Hixon Prize

• Woo-Kyoung Ahn
• Steven Berry
• Joseph Chang
• Marvin Chun
• John Geanakoplos
• Erik Harms
• Boris Kapustin
• Laurie Santos
• Brian Scholl
• Claudia Valeggia
• Harrison (Huibin) Zhou

Richard H. Brodhead Prize

• Sybil Alexandrov
• Beth Anne Bennett
• Patrick Devlin
• Andrew Ehrgood
• Anne Fadiman
• Alfred Guy
• Marketa Havlickova
• Ruth Koizim
• Angela Lee-Smith
• Deborah Margolin
• F Kenneth Nelson
• Jonathan Reuning-Scherer
• Karin Roffman
• Wei Su
• Camille Thomasson
• Quan Tran
• Joseph Wolenski
• William Zhou

Sarai Ribicoff Prize

• Timothy Barringer
• Michael Della Rocca
• Moira Fradinger
• Beverly Gage
• Andrew Johnston
• Kathryn Lofton
• Daniel Magaziner
• Catherine Nicholson
• Alicia Schmidt Camacho

Sidonie Miskimin Clauss Prize

• Leslie Brisman
• Turner Brooks
• Jill Campbell
• Joanne Freeman
• Tamar Gendler
• Jacqueline Goldsby
• Christine Hayes
• Shelly Kagan
• Richard Lalli
• Stephanie Newell
• Carolyn Roberts
• Sun-Joo Shin

Dylan Hixon Prize

• John Carlson
• Jonathan Ellman
• Debra Fischer
• Marla Geha
• Mark Johnson
• Michael Koelle
• Simon Mochrie
• Timothy Newhouse
• Nikhil Padmanabhan
• Brian Scassellati
• Mary-Louise Timmermans
• Patrick Vaccaro

Harwood F. Byrnes / Richard B. Sewall Prize

• John Gaddis
• Margaret Homans
• Mark Mooseker
• William Nordhaus
• Ramamurti Shankar
• Kenneth Winkler
• Kurt Zilm