Yale's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) has announced the 2026 recipients of its Graduate Mentor Awards, given to four faculty members annually in recognition of their exceptional advising and mentoring of graduate students.
The winners of this year's awards are Joseph Craft, the Paul B. Beeson Professor of Medicine (rheumatology) and professor of immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine; Jessica Peritz, assistant professor of music in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS); Ivan Loseu, professor of mathematics in FAS; and Egor Lazarev, assistant professor of political science in FAS.
GSAS Dean Lynn Cooley called this year's winners "true exemplars of the mentor-student relationship that is a pillar of graduate education."
The awards are based on recommendations from enrolled graduate students, who are invited to submit faculty nominations every spring term. The honorees are selected by a committee of faculty and students in consultation with GSAS.
An award is given in each of four divisions: biological sciences, humanities, physical sciences and engineering, and social sciences.
The winners will be recognized at the GSAS Convocation Ceremony on Sunday, May 17 at the Yale University Art Gallery.
Joseph Craft (Biological Sciences)
Craft, an expert on the pathogenesis of systemic autoimmune diseases, runs a laboratory focused on better understanding host responses to pathogen challenge and in autoimmunity. He is also director of the Investigative Medicine Program (IMP), a Ph.D.-granting program that trains clinical investigators at the Yale School of Medicine. One of the Ph.D. candidates in that program praised Craft for being "genuinely invested in his students as both scientists and people." IMP trainees generally agree, the student said, that the environment he has created there makes them "feel both challenged and supported."
Jessica Peritz (Humanities)
Peritz's research interests include Western music of the 17th through early 19th centuries, especially opera and vocal music. Students said Peritz is very generous with her time, enthusiastically engaging with and providing feedback on their work, serving on numerous dissertation committees, and helping them to get their work published. In the classroom, students said, she fosters an environment where all feel comfortable voicing their opinions and ideas.
Ivan Loseu (Physical Sciences and Engineering)
Loseu's research interests are in representation theory and its connections to algebraic and symplectic geometry. Students said Loseu demands a lot from his students - his homework exercises are notoriously hard - but gives a lot in return. He provides detailed, individualized feedback on assignments and, students said, as an advisor he is reliably patient and accessible.
Egor Lazarev (Social Sciences)
Lazarev's research interests are law and state-building, conflict, and human rights in the former Soviet Union, primarily in Russia and the Caucasus. He has demonstrated a consistent commitment to the intellectual and professional development of his mentees, students said. One student who struggled with anxiety in public speaking praised Lazarev for his individualized guidance on planning and delivering lectures. A student from a war zone in Ukraine said that, after a family member was killed there, Lazarev was extraordinarily supportive.
