The Tanner Awards were established to recognize excellence in inspirational teaching of undergraduate students. The awards were created in 1952 with a bequest by Kenneth Spencer Tanner ’11 and his sister, Sara Tanner Crawford (on behalf of their deceased brothers, Simpson Bobo Tanner Jr. and Jesse Spencer Tanner), establishing an endowment fund in memory of their parents, Lola Spencer and Simpson Bobo Tanner. Each of the winners receives a one-time stipend of $7,500 and a framed citation.
Snehalkumar ‘Neil’ S. Gaikwad, School of Data Science and Society
Who is the best teacher you’ve had and why?
Much of my life, I taught myself in libraries and through lived experience. At MIT, three professors added crucial perspectives: Julie Shah on human-AI collaboration, Bish Sanyal on questioning assumptions with empathy and Sally Haslanger on philosophy as practice. I wove these with my self-taught roots into my teaching approach.
What’s something creative you’ve done to engage your students?
As AI reshapes society, I built a creative learning environment where students integrate computational and ethical reasoning from the start. Students design human-AI systems, test with communities, discover choices create dilemmas and redesign. They learn through building, failing, reflecting and rebuilding. One team won a competition, another published at the Association for Computing Machinery.
University Teaching Awards
The University Teaching Awards annually recognize outstanding teaching and mentoring of undergraduate, graduate, and post-baccalaureate students. Faculty, staff, students, and alumni nominate deserving teachers and mentors.
Eric Hastie, biology department, College of Arts and Sciences
Who is the best teacher you’ve had and why?
Dan Cox, my high school yearbook instructor. Dan highlighted the necessity of world travel, an understanding of people’s differences as strengths and an appreciation for creativity that is unmatched. All the students in his classroom felt safe, seen and encouraged to learn and grow as individuals. I try to bring the same level of support to my students.
What’s something creative you’ve done to engage your students?
Currently, I’m making short biology TikTok-type videos to help students relate content to their lives. It’s goofy and fun, but rooted in promoting science communication. Showing students that the content applies to their lives in a meaningful way helps them connect and, I hope, have more discussions about science in their communities.
Mary Kroeger, political science department, College of Arts and Sciences
Who is the best teacher you’ve had and why?
Mrs. Melody Brunson, my fourth-grade teacher, was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had because of her skill at instructing with examples. Also, she made me feel valued as a student and as a person. Later, as an undergraduate at UNC, I had many remarkable professors who inspired me to pursue this career. Professor Virginia Gray, who taught me the state politics course I now teach, was especially influential, as was her graduate research assistant, Justin Kirkland, now a professor at UVA. Both shaped my path, and both have remained mentors and advocates. It is a joy to now teach at UNC, especially the same course that once inspired me as a student.
What’s something creative you’ve done to engage your students?
Some of my favorite class activities ask students to step into the institutions we study. In my bureaucracy course, students take part in simulations such as a press conference or confirmation hearing. In my state politics course, I have students engage directly with the texts of state politics so they can analyze the language that these politicians and institutions make and shape. These exercises help students connect abstract concepts to the real institutions and processes we study, and it’s fun to see them engage.
Montek Singh, computer science department, College of Arts and Sciences
Who is the best teacher you’ve had and why?
The late physicist Richard Feynman has been my most influential teacher, though I know him only through his writing. He emphasized deep intuition alongside formal rigor, which has shaped how I approach teaching. In my own courses, I try to explain complex ideas by building intuition first, without relying heavily on advanced mathematics. Feynman’s autobiographical writing also taught me that curiosity, creativity and a sense of play are essential to learning.
What’s something creative you’ve done to engage your students?
I have worked to make my course Digital Logic and Computer Design accessible and engaging, especially for students with no hardware or engineering background. I frame computing as a set of layered abstractions, building step by step from tiny hardware components to complete systems. Over a semester, students design and build a working computer and then use it to run programs they have written — often simple games like Pac-Man or Tetris — on hardware they built themselves.
I also encourage students to choose their own final projects. While this means supporting many different directions, students are typically more engaged when they build something they care about.
Megan P. Williams, School of Nursing
Who is the best teacher you’ve had and why?
The best teacher I’ve had was Dr. Janice Anderson. I took her course, Technology Across the Curriculum, at a time when I was still developing my identity as an educator. What made her stand out was not just what she taught, but how she created space for us to learn.
She invited us to explore, experiment and take risks with new ideas. There was a strong sense of trust in her classroom — trust that we could shape our own learning in meaningful ways. For me, this was my first real experience with the idea of students as co-creators of their learning, and it shifted how I think about teaching.
What’s something creative you’ve done to engage your students?
One of the most creative approaches I’ve used to engage students is designing a synthesis simulation at the end of the first semester of nursing school. The simulation is intentionally designed as a culminating experience in which students must integrate knowledge, skills, communication and clinical judgment within a realistic patient scenario.
What makes this experience especially meaningful is that it shifts students from thinking about individual skills to seeing the bigger picture of patient care. It also reinforces that learning is not an individual process; students learn with and from each other.