This year, we have a new Astronomy Graduate Teaching Award for graduate students who demonstrate excellence in teaching through aiding student understanding, delivering content, developing new teaching materials, and/or leading classes.

 

Nicole Gountanis was nominated by 4 different people for this award, in recognition of her work TAing Marc Pinsonneault's undergraduate major class on stellar structure and evolution in Spring 2026, her student mentorship, and her science communication. In TAing for Marc, Nicole helped students of varying computing abilities do online modeling with the YREC stellar evolution code. In addition to writing homework solutions and doing quick grading, Nicole held review sessions with students that were widely praised by students.