CTI announces 2026 winners of Ye Awards for graduate achievements in teaching

The Center for Teaching Innovation is pleased to announce that doctoral candidates Naman Agrawal and Margaret E. Foster are the 2025-2026 recipients of the Cornelia Ye and Christine Ye Outstanding Teaching Assistant Awards.

The awards recognize two outstanding graduate teaching assistants (TAs) who have clearly demonstrated dedication and excellence in their teaching responsibilities, with the Cornelia Ye Award honoring one international TA, and the Christine Ye Award honoring one domestic TA.

The Ye Awards were established by two gifts from Cornell alumni and faculty, Dr. Xi Yang, PhD '10, and Dr. Mao Ye, PhD '11. Ye is a professor of finance and Yang is a lecturer of finance in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. The awards are named in honor of their daughters.

This year's awards were presented at the University-Wide GET SET Teaching Conference, held April 18.

Cornelia Ye Award recipient - Naman Agrawal

This year's Cornelia Ye Award recipient is Naman Agrawal, a doctoral candidate in neurobiology and behavior. Agrawal works in the Computational Physiology Lab of Christiane Linster, professor of neurobiology and behavior in the College of Arts & Sciences, studying interareal neural communication through computational analysis, focusing on olfactory and memory related areas.

"The Cornelia Ye Award means a lot to me, especially as a first-gen international graduate student," Agrawal said. "There are very few bodies that recognize the efforts of non-citizens towards teaching and pedagogy, and thus this award gave me a lot of validation for the work I have been doing in my classes."

Agrawal's education has taken him across the world. Prior to arriving at Cornell in 2021, he received his Bachelor of Science degree from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata, India, and his Master of Science degree from the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behavior in Bonn, Germany.

"The world out there is intricately beautiful, from simple atoms to complex human behavior," said Agrawal, whose goal is to spark "enduring curiosity" in his students. "I believe that educators should instill in the students a sense of awe and wonder about this beautiful world we co-inhabit …If my students go about their daily lives with a twinkle in their eyes and curiosity in their minds, finding joy and beauty in the natural world, I would consider my job well done."

For Agrawal, receiving the Cornelia Ye award is especially meaningful because it is based in part on recommendation letters from his students.

"At the end of the day, educators and students are inseparable," he said. "Thus I think of this award as appreciation from my students, and I dedicate this award to my students."

Christine Ye Award recipient - Margaret E. "Maggie" Foster

Margaret E. Foster is a doctoral candidate in communication in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She studies the intersection of media studies and gender and sexuality studies, especially the ways in which media can facilitate queer sociality and self-expression. Her dissertation focuses on the role independent bookstores play in helping to create and sustain queer spaces.

"Receiving this award is a great honor," Foster said. "Teaching is my passion and the reason I'm pursuing a career in academia-I hope to be a lifelong teacher and learner. I am so deeply grateful to the Ye family for instituting this award, and I'm honored to be its recipient."

Foster also said she's grateful for her students, crediting all they bring to the classroom. "My goal is always to create a classroom environment where each person's opinion is valued and taken seriously, where we can critically discuss how meaning is made through media objects and beyond. In that endeavor, I have the pleasure of learning from my students as much as they learn from me!"

Foster's love for teaching has roots that stretch back to her undergraduate experience at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., where she studied cultural studies and Spanish. She first learned about critical pedagogies through education research. She credits this background with fueling her passion for both teaching and social justic

From there, Foster completed her Master of Arts degree in media and communication and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied gender-based violence and hashtag activism, particular as it related to the #MeToo movement.

She now brings human-centered approaches into her classroom, prioritizing in-class activities that encourage students to see their peers as resources.

"In the era of generative AI, I believe deeply in the value of classrooms as opportunities for human connection," Foster said. "Teaching is not just imparting information on my students, but building a classroom community where students can ask questions of me, the course materials, each other, and themselves."

Foster has also received CALS' Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award in 2025, and was a Graduate School's Dean's Fellow with the Graduate School Office of Inclusion and Student Engagement in 2022-2023.

This year marks the first year in the Ye Awards' history that two CTI Graduate Teaching Fellows have been recognized with the awards. While CTI facilitates the awards process, no member of CTI participates or has influence on the selection committee.