The fifth annual Emerging Educators Celebration recently honored graduate students and postdoctoral scholars for completing various teaching development programs and certificates offered across UCLA. Over 120 grad students and postdocs were recognized at the La Kretz Garden Pavilion at the Mathias Botanical Garden and joined by supportive friends, family, faculty, staff, and alumni.
The evening’s celebratory atmosphere highlighted the important role grad students and postdocs play in advancing educational innovation.
“The Emerging Educators Celebration is one of my favorite events of the year,” shared Elyse Gueidon, Associate Director for Graduate Student Professional Development at the Teaching and Learning Center and a co-organizer of the Celebration. “It’s inspiring to see the way that these top-tier researchers bring their expertise into every aspect of their teaching practice and strive to improve by taking advantage of every opportunity they can.”
Hosted by the Emerging Educators Development Group, the celebration honored TA recipients of the Distinguished Teaching Awards, the Collegium of University Teaching Fellows (CUTF), the Teaching Assistant Consultants program (TAC), Teaching Assistants for the Cluster Program, the Graduate Certificate in Writing Pedagogy (GCWP), the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning’s Certificate program (CIRTL), as well as Humanities Technology’s Research and Instructional Technology Consultants program.
In addition to showcasing these professional accomplishments, this year’s event also aimed to foster connections between newer educators at UCLA.
“The event is an opportunity to create a community around teaching,” said Laurel Westrup, a continuing lecturer in Writing Programs and coordinator for the Graduate Certificate in Writing Pedagogy, who is a Celebration co-organizer. “That’s what I hope those who attend take away from the event: we have a vibrant teaching community at UCLA and we learn so much from each other.”
Honoree Dzmitry Vaido, a 2026 Distinguished Teaching Award recipient and TA Consultant in Physics & Astronomy, appreciated the opportunity to engage with education experts and share best practices, both at the event and through the various professional development programs.
“During my years as a graduate student, I learned that strong collaboration is essential to advancing science, and I believe the same principle applies to teaching,” he shared. “All instructors on campus share a common goal: educating the next generation of thinkers who will go on to make meaningful contributions to the world. The more we collaborate and exchange ideas about how to improve the student experience, the better equipped we are to help our students succeed.”
Additionally, a new feature of this year’s Emerging Educators Celebration was inviting alumni back to campus. Organizers hoped to highlight how the teaching development programs can connect current graduates to a larger network extending beyond their time at UCLA.
“Since many of the programs we recognize at the event are oriented toward grad student and postdoc professionalization, we thought it would be especially beneficial to have alumni from our programs come back and participate in the event,” noted Westrup. “This not only allows current students and postdocs to connect with the educators who have come before them but also gives alumni an opportunity to reconnect with our community.”
Alumna Briley Lewis, a current National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara, appreciated catching up with former colleagues and seeing how the programs continue to attract many participants.
“I think this celebration shows how important it is that UCLA invests in opportunities for graduate students to hone their teaching skills,” she said. “From the 495 TA training courses to the CUTF program, so many students were recognized, and it is clear what a positive impact their efforts have on teaching at UCLA,” Having participated in TAC, CIRTL, CUTF, GCWP, and the Cluster Program while at UCLA, Lewis found these opportunities hugely impactful on her current career.
“I believe that the unique and rigorous teaching experience from UCLA has helped me become a better mentor to the undergraduate and graduate students that I work with as a postdoc, and I think that this experience will be helpful as I apply for faculty jobs as well,” Lewis noted.
In addition to hosting the annual celebration, the Emerging Educators Development Group creates year-round programming to support grad students and postdocs as they hone instructional practices and career success. The group includes the Cluster Program, Graduate Career Services, Graduate Student Resource Center, the Graduate Writing Center, Humanities Technology, the UCLA Teaching and Learning Center, UCLA’s Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning, UCLA Writing Programs, and several UCLA professors of teaching. It began as a subcommittee of UCLA’s Cross-Campus Teaching Innovations Group (CTIG).
Through active collaboration across these centers, the group strives to highlight grad students and postdocs’ roles as integral members of the UCLA teaching community.
“I think a shared value of the group is bringing together different perspectives that enrich our work as educators,” noted Gueidon. “We all come from different programs and backgrounds but are ultimately excited to come together as thought partners to enhance teaching professional development opportunities for our graduate students and postdocs.”