Ye Awards celebrate outstanding graduate achievements in teaching

The Center for Teaching Innovation (CTI) is pleased to announce that doctoral candidates Manasi Anand and Ellie Homant are the 2024-2025 recipients of the Cornelia Ye and Christine Ye Outstanding Teaching Assistant Awards. The awards were presented at the University-Wide GET SET Teaching Conference, held April 26.

The awards are given annually to two graduate teaching assistants who have demonstrated dedication and excellence in their teaching responsibilities. The Cornelia Ye Award, established in 2012 by Mao Ye, Ph.D. '11, and Xi Yang, Ph.D. '10, honors an international teaching assistant, and the Christine Ye Award, new this year, honors a domestic teaching assistant.

Ye and Yang have named the awards in honor of their daughters. Ye is a professor of finance and Yang is a lecturer of finance in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

Cornelia Ye Award Winner: Manasi Anand

Cornelia Ye award winner Manasi Anand is a Ph.D. candidate in Natural Resources and the Environment in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). Anand's research involves a multi-scale institutional analysis of Natural Climate Solutions in the forest sector, and she's found that her research and teaching go hand in hand.

"I think my research has made me a better educator - and my role as an educator has made me a better researcher," Anand said, adding that running discussion sessions for the Society and Natural Resources and Environmental Governance course "has been among the most memorable and meaningful aspects of (my) Ph.D."

Anand takes a creative approach to the classroom, using pedagogical tools that include everything from role-play and storytelling to policy simulations.

"As an educator in environmental studies, I strive to integrate interdisciplinary scholarly inquiry with place-based learning," Anand said. "Drawing from frameworks in ecology, economics, geography, and institutional analysis, I encourage students to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world conservation challenges-whether in their hometowns, on campus, or in culturally unfamiliar settings. Each student brings their own cultural, geographic, and disciplinary backgrounds, enriching classroom conversations in meaningful ways."

One playful example of Anand's teaching approaches involved engaging students' sense of childhood nostalgia. Students watched clips from The Flintstones and The Jetsons to explore the relationships between nature and capitalism.

"I often draw on childhood nostalgia-experiences in nature, cartoons, food-to help unpack complex relationships between humans and the environment," Anand said. "Ultimately, I want my students to engage diverse ways of knowing in order to develop well-informed, grounded policy solutions."

For Anand, receiving the Cornelia Ye Award is a validation of how students' diverse backgrounds and experiences can contribute to a lively and enlivening space for learning to happen.

"Receiving the Cornelia Ye Award is incredibly meaningful to me-especially in a world where polarization is growing and the work of education, dialogue, and reconciliation feels more urgent than ever," she said.

Christine Ye Award Winner: Ellie Homant

Christine Ye Award winner Ellie Homant is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication, CALS, and was a Graduate Teaching Fellow at the Center for Teaching Innovation from 2023-2025.

Homant's research involves using a queer and feminist media studies framework to examine online LGBTQ+ representations and communities, digital labor, and identity management. For her dissertation, she's investigating the influencer market industry - specifically how a network of third-party intermediaries, such as talent managers and agents, help influencers professionalize in their specific economy.

"My teaching philosophy is rooted in my deep commitment to social justice and change through education," Homant said, noting that higher education, including elite institutions like Cornell, has historically excluded students coming from under-resourced backgrounds, or with marginalized identities.

That said, for Homant, education is key for deconstructing the systems that have promoted this exclusion, and the current sociopolitical moment makes the role of education more important than ever.

"I teach many very bright young adults, and believe that they should all be empowered as knowers, meaning that their experiences, ways of knowing, and ethics are not only appreciated, but celebrated," Homant said. "Teaching and learning are hard work, and consist of iterative and reciprocal processes that, at their best, challenge existing hierarchies and barriers and inspire all those involved.

"It is my hope that my commitment to education as a tool for change plays a small part in the larger project of making our world a more equitable and just place," she said.

The Cornelia Ye Award selection committee includes both faculty, staff, and graduate and undergraduate students, and the CTI does not weigh in on their selections. This year's committee included Mayer Juni, Bruce Slovin assistant professor in the Department of History in the College of Arts & Sciences; Shivaun D. Archer, John & Janet Swanson senior lecturer in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering and director of undergraduate studies in Cornell Engineering; former winners and Ph.D. candidates Amanda Domingues, Department of Science and Technology Studies (A&S), and Judith Tauber, Department of Romance Studies (A&S); and undergraduate nutritional sciences major Haruna Floate, '26 (CALS).