2025 Everett I. Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award Ceremony

The 26th annual Everett I. Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Awards ceremony was held on Thursday, March 27, 2025, in Lehman Hall and organized by the Harvard Griffin GSAS Student Council. Faculty members, student nominees, family members, Student Council leaders, and School administrators gathered to listen to students read brief remarks about how their mentors have guided their academic lives and supported their personal growth during their time at Harvard Griffin GSAS.

The Mentoring Awards began in 1999 by the Harvard Griffin GSAS Student Council as part of a program sponsored by the National Graduate and Professional Students Association. In its 26th year, the group is proud to continue the tradition of recognizing Harvard faculty who go above and beyond to support the academic, personal, and professional development of graduate students at Harvard Griffin GSAS. The Mentoring Awards connect with the goal of improving graduate student advising. The history of the award and past winners can be found in this Engage article.

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From left to right: Tom Conley, Aaron G. Schmidt, Carolyn Abbate, Mark Richardson, MD, PhD, and Jacob Aaron Barandes.

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Photo by Muqing Xu

About the Winners 

Carolyn Abbate is the Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor and a renowned scholar of musicology. Her students speak of her as a mentor whose influence transcends academia, shaping both career and character through “determination, humility, and compassion.”

Jacob Aaron Barandes serves as co-director of graduate studies for physics and lecturer on physics. Widely admired for his quiet brilliance as a mentor, Jacob supports students in ways that “make you grow as a person and feel capable of shaping your own life.”

Tom Conley is the Abbott Lawrence Lowell Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of Visual and Environmental Studies. He is celebrated as a “perennially kind” and “thoroughly interdisciplinary” mentor, responsive, and generous. 

Mark Richardson, MD, PhD, is director of functional neurosurgery and of the Brain Modulation Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital. Students commend him for “redefining mentorship” by combining high intellectual ambition with deep compassion and care. 

Aaron G. Schmidt is an assistant professor of microbiology and chair of the PhD program in virology. He is praised for fostering “a truly intellectually diverse lab environment” and for his exceptional dedication to “the well-being of students both inside and outside of science.”