2026 Faculty Mentoring Awardee

The Faculty Mentoring Award recognizes senior faculty who have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to faculty mentoring through their work with tenure-track and mid-career faculty in developing their careers. Exceptional mentoring can include offering advice, feedback and guidance on research activities, coaching on work-life balance issues, providing professional opportunities for mentees, and/or assisting in development of teaching skills.

The Faculty Mentoring Award honors the incredible mentoring legacy of Columbia Business School Professor Katherine W. Phillips.

The recipient of the 2026 Faculty Mentoring Award is:

George Deodatis
Vice Dean for Research, Santiago and Robertina Calatrava Family Professor of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, and Professor of Earth and Environmental Engineering
School of Engineering and Applied Science

What does faculty mentorship mean to you, and how has your approach to mentoring evolved over the course of your career?

"My approach to mentoring has been the same throughout my senior academic career. Inspired by the outstanding mentoring I received as a student and as an untenured faculty member, I made it a priority to mentor my junior colleagues and students. My main approach has been to provide unlimited time for one-on-one meetings with junior faculty during their untenured years. During these meetings, I focused on providing guidance and advice to maximize their research impact, reach wider audiences in their fields, improve their teaching effectiveness, and, overall, increase their chances of receiving tenure. It makes me very happy if I have contributed a little bit along these lines."