SSD Faculty and Students Receive 2026 Teaching Awards

Several faculty and students were recently honored with 2026 teaching awards, including the Quantrell and Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring Awards awarded annually by the University of Chicago, as well the Swogger, Booth, and Undergraduate Student teaching prizes awarded by The College.
 

Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Awards

The Quantrell Awards, awarded annually by the University, are believed to be the nation's oldest prize for undergraduate teaching.
 

Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, Associate Professor in History

It’s important to Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, PhD’05, that students look beyond the here and now.

“One of the things that worries me the most is the dismissal of the past,” said the environmental historian. “If you forget about the past, then it’s easy to be seduced by simplistic accounts of what human nature is.”

In his research, Albritton Jonsson bridges social science and environmental studies, investigating how and why environmental changes have occurred in the past.

At UChicago, he has helped establish the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization as well as the “Energy in World Civilizations” core sequence, with Asst. Prof. Elizabeth Chatterjee, which explores the historical roots of climate change and postulates on futures beyond fossil fuel dependence.

Broadening perspectives also lies at the heart of his pedagogical practice. Albritton Jonsson makes a point of teaching “to the whole room.” For him, a good class means everyone gets to weigh in—undergraduates and graduate students with a multitude “of viewpoints, of experience, of ideology.”

“There's nothing quite like the adrenaline kick of a good class,” he said.
 

“Professor Albritton Jonsson works incredibly hard and is one of the only teachers, in my opinion, who has a perfect course sequence at UChicago,” said one student. “Hands down the best teacher I have ever witnessed.”

For him, teaching is sharing “the joy of grappling” with rigorous arguments and intelligent thinkers. He even pressure tests his own arguments in the classroom. For years, he has taught iterations of his forthcoming book Pandora’s Box: The First Fossil Fuel Economy, which traces the rise of fossil fuel use in Britain.

“I can honestly say the undergraduates in the classroom have done an incredible favor in helping me hone and make much sharper my arguments in my books,” he said.

Despite the potential doom and gloom of his field, Albritton Jonsson wants his students to walk away from his courses feeling inspired rather than pacified.

“I don’t want them to give up hope,” he said.

After 20 years of teaching undergraduates, he says receiving a Quantrell award means the world to him. “I consider this the greatest honor of my life.”
 

Faculty Awards for Excellence in Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring
 

Fernando Alvarez, the Charles F. Gray Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College

According to Fernando Alvarez, most students enter Ph.D. programs with a common misconception. There is a pervasive myth, he says, that one day the clouds will clear and a shining path up a mountain will appear. At its peak—the perfect research question.

“That's really not at all how research works,” said the macroeconomist. “You're basically in these clouds all the time.”

For the past 30 years, Alvarez has guided UChicago students through the mists, advising them to stay grounded and flexible. He believes that by first reading others’ work deeply, one can then begin the “very incremental, marginal work” of improving upon it.

“Start with something,” he said. “Take it seriously.”

Inspired by his childhood in Argentina—an era of hyperinflation and severe economic downturn—Alvarez made the long journey north to the University of Minnesota to pursue a Ph.D. in economics. While there, his mentor, the equally mysterious and brilliant Nobel laureate Edward Prescott, treated his students more like colleagues.

Though he characterizes his mentorship style as less enigmatic genius and more “detail-oriented and curious,” Alvarez has continued the tradition of developing close relationships with his students.
 

At UChicago, Alvarez is known for his hyper-clear lectures and walking students carefully through complex problems and ideas.

“He has a rare ability to make difficult material feel natural and intuitive,” said a current student.

“Students leave not only having learned the material, but also having learned how to reason like economists,” said another.

Frequently described as humble and generous, Alvarez keeps his office as well as his home open for students, ready to support them in whatever way they need. Over his career, Alvarez has advised more than 50 doctoral theses; many of his students are now prominent economists in their own right.

This past September, dozens of them returned to campus for a celebratory conference entitled “Fernando Alvarez at 60: Celebrating his Contributions to Economics and his Friendship.” For two days, speakers recognized Alvarez’s brilliance as an economist.

But with the same frequency came stories of supportive mentorship that “demonstrated humility, attention and genuine care,” said one co-organizer, a former student and current assistant professor at Yale University.

“To be Fernando’s student is, quite simply, a privilege of a lifetime.”
 

Glenn and Claire Swogger Award for Exemplary Classroom Teaching

The Swogger Award recognizes outstanding teachers with College appointments who introduce students to habits of scholarly thinking, inquiry and engagement in the Core curriculum—the College’s general education program.
 

Rashauna Johnson, Associate Professor in History

For Rashauna Johnson, serious scholarship requires a bit of unseriousness. It’s one of the lessons that she has tried to impart on UChicago undergraduates since arriving at the College six years ago, and it’s something that each student has embraced.

“I want them to see that learning and disagreeing can be fun and collegial,” said Johnson, who teaches courses on the African diaspora and the United States in the Department of History. “We must debate things and we can do so without hostility or personal animosity. That’s one of the most beautiful things about this place.”

As an associate professor of history, being able to teach a student body that is composed of individuals from diverse backgrounds brings greater depth to the stories and ideas brought forth during each class.

“I always enjoy moments when students apply insights from their unique experiences to our material,” she said. “These unscripted, yet powerful moments remind me that there is something special about what we do here.”

The culture of “deep intellectualism” is another thing that Johnson values about UChicago. It keeps her constantly on her toes and sometimes forces her to ditch daily plans in the best of ways.

“Undergraduates bring to each discussion an unusual range of references that allow them to make novel connections and parallels across disciplines,” Johnson said.  “Lesson plans can sometimes be completely disregarded because students will whipsaw from political thought in the ancient world to midcentury pop culture and current trends all in one session. That is a good thing.”

Ultimately, it’s the “life of the mind” philosophy that sets UChicago apart.

“The Core curriculum is this unique type of learning and thinking across the University which fosters an unbelievable culture of rigor and curiosity that is unequaled.”
 

Wayne C. Booth Prize for Excellence in Teaching

The Booth Prize is awarded annually to University of Chicago graduate students for outstanding instruction of undergraduates.
 

Jessie Alperin, Art History and the Committee on Social Thought

In a world that tends to move at the speed of light, Jessie Alperin wants students to slow down.

“I not only want to introduce students to the content of any course that I’m teaching but also a way of thinking that starts with slowing down and learning to look carefully while also reading closely.”

Since beginning her PhD program at UChicago in 2021, Alperin has taught courses such as “Introduction to Art” and "Introduction to Modern Japanese Art” and recently offered the standalone course “Global Art Nouveau,” one which she created herself.

In her course, which rethinks Art Nouveau through global exchange, Alperin emphasizes that the best ideas start from small observations

“I try to impart on my students that great research begins with small observations and develops gradually over time,” said Alperin. “I want students to understand that they do not have to have all the answers and that meaning does not arrive all at once but rather crystallizes slowly through patience, attention and a willingness to sit with a question.”

One thing that has constantly impressed her about UChicago undergraduates is the fact that students will often sit with those questions long after instructions in the classroom have ended.

“In each course that I have taught, many students came to office hours not because they needed help, but simply because they wanted to continue talking about the material, share what they were learning in other courses or to ask for further reading recommendations.”

These visits often prove to Alperin that her own personal goal of making sure that looking closely becomes a lifelong habit is being met.

“I still receive emails from previous students telling me about a piece of art that they saw on vacation,” she said. “This is incredibly meaningful to me because it shows that they are still taking the time to pause and ask the same questions from class on their own.”
 

Aaron Stagoff-Belfort, Sociology 

Aaron Stagoff-Belfort wants to push his sociology students beyond the textbook and develop their senses to help them think further.

“Most UChicago students already have a skillset that allows them to comprehend the basic argument of the texts we read fairly easily, but what I want to help students do is cultivate a critical point of view or perspective.”

Having completed his undergraduate degree without having taken a sociology class, it was his work at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City on their Redefining Public Safety team that made him fall in love with the subject. The experience opened his eyes like no book ever could.

“I aim to push my students to develop sharper, more incisive and creative arguments that fill in the blanks from what might be missing from the text or helps them bring in outside readings or their own original opinion.”

As an instructor teaching Introductory Statistics to undergraduate students, he wants to use a somewhat difficult subject as a lesson to make sure that no one backs down from a challenge.

“I try to explain statistical concepts in as simple and clear terms as possible so any student can grasp the material,” said Stagoff-Belfort. “Learning to overcome adversity in an academic setting can be a good thing. I want to instill confidence in any student who might be worried that they can’t learn something or that a class might be too difficult.”

His teaching style, to be more of a conductor than a lecturer, is something that he believes helps the students accomplish this.

“There is an art to managing the rhythm and flow of class discussion without just talking at students. I want my students to build the conversation, so they learn from each other,” Stagoff-Belfort said. “I like to create that comfortable type of atmosphere where people don’t feel that sense of anxiety that prevents them from doing good work.”
 

College Undergraduate Student Prize in Undergraduate Teaching
 

Benjamin Miele, Economics and English

For Miele, economics is both useful and beautiful.

Graduating this spring with an AB in both economics and English language and literature, Miele served as a teaching assistant this past fall for Professor Kotaro Yoshida’s section of Economic Policy Analysis.

“My goal as a TA was always to stress the importance of economic intuition,” Miele said. “But I also wanted to help students develop connections between the content we learned in class, the decisions governments make every day, and the effects those decisions have on their lives and the lives of others.”

Miele first took Economic Policy Analysis as a third-year student and loved the course. It taught him that “many fundamental microeconomic principles scale up to the population level and have very elegant macroeconomic implications.”

When Yoshida asked him to become a TA, the decision was easy. Returning to the material gave him the chance to revisit ideas that had interested him as a student, but also to help others encounter those ideas for the first time.

The structure of the discussion section in the course differed from most economic classes. Instead of using the time to review homework questions, Miele wrote new questions and gave students time to work through them independently. This made things “more useful and engaging” he said, noting that writing these new problems was an exercise that benefited both himself and the students. The problem sessions became Miele’s favorite moments as a TA.

“I find it extremely rewarding when I can help a student reframe a question so they can apply their intuition in a new way,” Miele said. “Economics is beautiful, and there is something very special about helping another person recognize beauty.”
 

Jinming Wang, Neuroscience and Economics

Jinming Wang approaches teaching with a focus on active learning, independence and long-term skill development.

As a fourth-year neuroscience and economics double-major, he has served as a teaching assistant for several biology courses, including Human Genetics and Developmental Biology. His teaching style emphasizes guiding students through the process of problem-solving rather than simply providing answers. By breaking down complex concepts and encouraging persistence, he helps students build confidence in tackling unfamiliar challenges.

“I encourage students to work through challenges on their own before seeking guidance, as this process often leads to deeper understanding.”

Meaningful interactions with students, especially during office hours, have been a defining part of his experience. These moments often extend beyond academics, fostering connections that continue across campus. At the same time, teaching has strengthened his own understanding, requiring him to engage deeply with the material and communicate it with clarity.

Wang also prioritizes helping students develop effective learning strategies that extend beyond a single course. He wants students to leave with the ability to think critically and apply foundational ideas in new contexts.

“My goal is for them to gain the ability to approach unfamiliar problems with confidence.”