Winners’ Circle: 2025 UF Grad Awards

Winners of the 2024-2025 Graduate Student Teaching Awards with faculty and support staff

Posted: April 28, 2025

With beloved University of Florida mascot Albert the Alligator as star guest, the UF Graduate School hosted its 2025 Graduate School Awards and Recognition Ceremony at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium’s exclusive Champions Club on Wednesday, April 9, 2025.

This annual event is a high point of Graduate Student Appreciation Week (GSAW), a yearly celebration of UF’s dynamic graduate student body and its massive contribution to UF’s longstanding reputation as a global hub of higher learning, research, and innovation.

UF Graduate School Dean Nicole Stedman and UF mascot Albert the Alligator shared a lighthearted moment on stage as the awards ceremony commenced.

New Awards

This year’s ceremony looked beyond students and faculty with a number of new awards that spotlight unsung individuals and initiatives instrumental in raising UF’s game in the graduate education arena:

• The Award for Excellence in Doctoral Education went to the Pharmaceutical Sciences graduate program (College of Pharmacy) for unit success in advising, curriculum, professional development, and outcomes aligned with Association of American Universities PhD Education Initiative. Their revamped Graduate Student Retreat, alumni career panels, and interdisciplinary research brainstorming were among the reasons for receiving this award.
• The Award for Innovation in Graduate Student Success went to the Animal Sciences graduate program (College of Agricultural and Life Sciences) for its Gator Tank programming, which spurs graduate students to transform research into real-life solutions. Gator Tank has helped Grad Gators to launch startups, secure patents, and win national competitions beyond traditional academic pathways.
• The Excellence in Graduate Program Support Award went to Kimberly Dukes, Director of Academic Support Services in the College of Journalism and Communications. It honors her extra-mile performance as a staffer who mentors, advocates, and champions student success with a personal touch.

Smiles were in no short supply as the UF Graduate School honored the best and the brightest in its midst.

Student Accolades

Also honored at the ceremony were graduate students who earned a place in the spotlight with these prestigious prizes:

• The Graduate Student Teaching Award (GSTA) — which recognizes our top graduate teaching assistants for their instructional skill and classroom engagement — when to Josie Bryan, Marcus Davis, James Everett, Joshua Higdon, Bomi Jin, Taylor Johnson, Jooyeon “Alice” Kim, Breanna McGrath, Kate Medla, Eleni Papadopoulou, Andrei Potapenko, Divya Radhakrishnan, Davis Simmons, Anthony Smith, Alexander Slant, Emily Swanson, Jade Young, and Yue Zhang. The Calvin A. VanderWerf Award went to the top two GSTA contenders, Alan Toney and Ben Vollmer.
• The Graduate Student Mentoring Award (GSMA) — given to Grad Gators who provide exceptional mentoring to peers, undergraduates, or K-12 students — went to Kyle Adams, Taylor Morris, Nikolaos Pipis, Allison Reade, Adam Searles, and Vignesh Subramaniam. Click here for more details about these winners.
• The Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition challenges graduate students to present their thesis or dissertation research to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes. This year’s winner of this test of effective communication was Tinuade Olarewaju. Marcus Davis came in second place, and Annesha Lahiri third.
• The Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Honor Society — named for the first Black American to earn a Ph.D. degree in the United States — inducts doctoral students, postdocs, faculty, and alumni who perpetuate his legacy of scholarship, leadership, character, service, and advocacy. This year’s inductees into UF’s Bouchet chapter were Oluwatoba Adedokun, Mosunmola Adejo, Jacobi Bedenfield, Riya Chakraborty, Elizabeth Evans, Jane Hsi, Tre’ Jeter, Geoffrey Kellogg, Jon Parker, and Vignesh Subramaniam.

UF Graduate School staffer Kimone Simmons and graduate student Samuel Aye-Gboyin show off his winning design for the limited edition GSAW 2025 T-shirt.

Faculty Laurels

Additionally, the ceremony gave a hand to graduate faculty who won this year’s Faculty Doctoral Mentoring Award (FDMA), which highlights graduate faculty whose mentoring of doctoral and Master of Fine Arts students demonstrated extraordinary guidance in research and professional development.

This year’s awardees were Drs. William Bauer (School of Music), Habibeh Khoshbouei (Department of Neuroscience), Prabhat Mishra (Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering), Boone Prentice (Department of Chemistry), and Kelly Rice (Department of Microbiology and Cell Science).

Click here for more details about these FDMA winners.

Graduating Gators

The ceremony also acknowledged graduating students in fellowship programs administered through the Graduate School:

• Board of Education (BOE) Fellows: Danielle Alverson, Alexis Davis, Antonio Diaz, Cynthia Eluagu, Tracey Kyles, Julio Martin, Ronald Masse, Sumaiya Nusrath, Janae Pendergrass, and Tiffany Pennamon.
• Fulbright International Students: Perfecto Ascencio Cervente, Oleksii Babynets, Estefany Guecha Sanchez, and Syeda Rizvi.
• McKnight Fellows: Ashley Hart, Tre’ Jeter, Joyce Morales, Theo Richardson, and William Sims Jr.
• NIH (National Institutes of Health) Fellows: Zavier Eure, Andrew Moore, Magdalena Samojlik, and Samantha Smith.
• NSF GRFP (National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows Program): Madeline Forbes, Ronald Masse, Marisa Pacheco, and Peter Xiong.

Left to right: UF Graduate School Dean Nicole Stedman, mascot Albert the Alligator, Associate Dean Judy Traveis (Graduate Student Success), and Associate Dean Tom Kelleher (Academic Affairs) on the terrace of the Champions Club at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

Applauding Service

Finally, the ceremony offered appreciative applause to students, faculty, and staff whose dedication, time, and effort positively impact the graduate education ecosystem at UF on many different fronts:

• The Graduate Council thanked Dr. Linda Bloom (Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) and Dr. James “J.C.” Bunch (Department of Agricultural Education and Communication) for their service as their terms on the council come to an end.
• The Graduate Student Council (GSC) recognized Fatima Akinola as Most Inspirational GSC Officer, Jennifer McAninch as Mosted Dedicated GSC Officer, and Tiffany Nelson as Hardest Working GSC Officer for the year.

The Graduate School also expressed its gratefulness to…

• Graduate Student Teaching Awards Committee members Drs. Valerie DeLeon, Sharon Difino, Julie Dodd, Luke Flory, Ifigeneia Giannadaki, Paula Golombek, Jon Reiskind, Grady Roberts, Lynn Sollenberger, and Professor Bradley Walters.
• Graduate Student Ambassadors: Meghan Campbell, Adriana Del Pino Herrera, Brian Diaz, and Joy Fatokun.
• Graduate Student Appreciation Week (GSAW) T-Shirt Designer Samuel Aye-Gboyin.