The Office of Faculty Development (OFD) is happy to announce 14 awards to faculty and librarians leading mutual mentoring projects in 2025-26.
OFD's Mutual Mentoring Grant Program aims to help faculty and librarians to develop and deepen their mentoring networks and community and to grow as researchers, teachers, and leaders in their fields. This year's cohort involves faculty from a variety of career stages and from all parts of campus, including nine colleges and schools. Projects take on a wide range of challenges – research and networking for faculty of color, parenting, improving faculty clinical competency, mentoring junior faculty, translational research and public engagement, developing interdisciplinary and cross-institutional relationships, and many others.
Associate Provost for Faculty Development, Angela de Oliveira, shares, "We are thrilled to deliver this year's grants to an impressive, passionate, and dedicated group of people. OFD is excited to empower these individuals and teams, both for their own professional development and for the positive impact they will make on campus. Mutual mentoring is a powerful way to build community as faculty and librarians move through their careers. This coming academic year, we will be celebrating 20 years of mutual mentoring on campus – with projects like these, I’m confident that mutual mentoring will continue to shape the life of the campus and the lives of our faculty for years to come."
2025-26 Mutual Mentoring Team Grant Recipients
Academic Dads Alliance
Team: Andrew Spracklen (biology), Andy Farrar (College of Natural Sciences Advising Center) Joshua Kaiser (sociology), Brokk Toggerson (physics)
The College of Education: Faculty of Color Research and Networking Collaborative
Team: Katrina Calhoun (education policy, research & administration), Theresa Austin (teacher education & curriculum studies), Justin Cole (student development), Keisha Green (teacher education & curriculum studies), Gabriela Richards (teacher education & curriculum studies), K. C. Nat Turner (teacher education & curriculum studies)
Latina Professors Mutual Mentoring for Success at UMass Amherst
Team: Aida Villanueva Montalvo (sociology), Mari Castañeda (Commonwealth Honors College), Sarah Gonzalez-Nahm (nutrition), Verónica Martín Ruiz (marketing)
Governing the Present: Epistemologies of History, Policy, Culture
Team: Bridgette Davis (public policy), Nicholas Caverly (anthropology), Sadiya Malcom-Wallace (sociology), Roopali Mukherjee (communication), Brian Sargent (sociology & public policy)
Creating an Interdisciplinary Network for the Study of Hispanic/Latinx Communities and Their Health Needs
Team: Meghan Armstrong-Abrami (languages, literatures & cultures), Patricia Gubitosi (languages, literatures & cultures), Airín Martínez (health promotion & policy), Daniel López-Cevallos (community health education)
Nursing Mutual Mentoring Model to Improve Faculty's Clinical Competency, Connection, and Scholarly Collaboration
Team: Rae Walker (nursing), Gina Grabowski (nursing), Sheila Pennell (nursing), Kristy Pereira (nursing)
Mutual Mentoring of Junior Faculty Cohort in Astronomy
Team: Min S. Yun (astronomy), Yuan Li (astronomy), Sinclaire Manning (astronomy), Alexandra Pope (astronomy), Katherine Whitaker (astronomy), Grant Wilson (astronomy), Jorge Zavala (astronomy)
Joyful Militancy: Re-examining the Pedagogical Ingenuity of the Social Thought and Political Economy Program
Team: Toussaint Losier (Afro-American studies), Shemon Salam (social thought & political economy program), Boone Shear (anthropology), Rachel Weber (social thought & political economy program)
2025-26 Mutual Mentoring Micro Grant Recipients
Advancing Research in Mechanics Through Cross-Institutional Collaboration
Simos Gerasimidis (civil & environmental engineering)
Healthcare Research Interdisciplinary Mentoring Group
Verónica Martín Ruiz (marketing)
Bridging Research and Industry: Advancing Knowledge Translation and Equity in Women's Sport Fandom
Katie Sveinson (sport management)
Across-Context Teaching and Research: A Partnership for Pedagogical Growth
Miranda Zhaoyu Wang-Doyle (teacher education & curriculum studies)
Translational Research Mentoring focused on Well-Being in the Built Environment
Caryn Brause (architecture)
Public Engagement Through Multimedial Scholarship
Sara Jackson (languages, literatures, & cultures)
To learn more about OFD’s Mutual Mentoring Grant Program, visit our website or contact Director of Faculty Development, Leyla Keough-Hameed (ljkeough@umass.edu).