Graduate school of arts and sciences

Graduate School alumnus to head AYA board

On July 1 Rahul Prasad ’87PhD (engineering and applied science) became the first alumnus of the Graduate School to chair the AYA Board of Governors. He is a senior physicist/manager at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and a prize-winning photographer.  

Since 2002, Prasad has volunteered for Yale—first as a member of the Graduate School Alumni Association (GSAA) executive committee and later as GSAA treasurer, then secretary, vice chair, and chair. He joined the university-wide Association of Yale Alumni (AYA) Board of Governors in 2012, when his chairmanship of GSAA ended. In addition to his involvement at the national level, Prasad is chair of the Yale Club of San Francisco. He received AYA’s Leadership Award for Volunteer Innovation and Service in 2015 in recognition of the on-campus “career days” he organized for alumni to advise and inspire students.  

Celebrating mentorship

Every year, the Graduate School celebrates three faculty members—one each from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities—for their extraordinary mentorship. This year, the Graduate Mentor Award selection committee reviewed 177 letters of nomination and chose Professors John (Jack) Dovidio, Roberta Frank, and Chinedum Osuji as Graduate Mentor Award winners.

Dovidio is dean of academic affairs of the FAS and the Carl I. Hovland Professor of Psychology. He also holds appointments at the School of Public Health and in the Institute for Social and Policy Studies. Frank is the Marie Borroff Professor of English and professor of linguistics. Osuji is associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering. All received glowing nominations from their grateful advisees.

Alumni provide career guidance

The GSAA hosted the sixth annual “Where Do I Go from Yale?” in May for all graduate students. Event cochairs Elizabeth Sullivan ’74BA/MA (Soviet and Eastern European studies) and Paul Bosco ’84MS (engineering and applied science) coordinated more than 50 alumni speakers and mentors who met with students during lunch at the Graduate Club and at a closing reception at the Golden Center. The day featured panels and breakout sessions on a wide range of career paths available to PhDs.

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