Education Innovation Award
This award recognizes teaching teams that contribute to better education at VU Amsterdam through innovative projects. The Education Innovation jury selects two winning teams, each receiving 15,000 euros. The VU Centre for Teaching and Learning will provide free support to help scale their projects.
Winners:
Sofia Stolk & Wouter Werner (Faculty of Law, in collaboration with the Faculty of Religion and Theology and the Faculty of Social Sciences) – Visual Evidence
Esther Schagen (Faculty of Social Sciences) – Let’s collaborate! Practicing collaboration skills through AI-powered avatar training
Finalists:
Marina Bool (Faculty of Science) – Tailored academic development to enhance student motivation and success
Janina Klein, Rafael Wilms & Katie Stephenson (School of Business and Economics) – Developing professional skills through debates
DocenTalent Award
This award honors a teacher who excels in inspiration, engagement, and teaching skills according to students. The winner receives 2,000 euros to invest in education.
Winner:
Geert Schenk (Faculty of Medicine)
Finalists:
Malte Max (School of Business and Economics)
John Hogan (Faculty of Social Sciences)
StudenTalent Award
This award is given to a student who demonstrates outstanding social or cultural engagement and serves as an inspiring role model. The winner receives 2,000 euros and is matched with an esteemed VU Amsterdam alumnus.
Winner:
Sofia Zampedri (Faculty of Law)
Finalists:
Asmaa Elhassan (Faculty of Medicine)
Radu Nicolae (Faculty of Science)
Master’s Thesis Award
The Master’s Thesis Award is presented to the master’s student whose thesis demonstrates the strongest societal impact, evaluated on impact, scientific quality, originality, and relevance. The winner receives 2,000 euros and is connected with a VU Amsterdam alumnus.
Winners:
Clara Luxardo (Faculty of Science) – Pastoral socio-ecological systems in transition – a case study in the high-altitude rangelands of Mustang, Nepal
Tianzheng Hu (Faculty of Science) – Interpretable diagnosis of schizophrenia using graph-based brain network information bottleneck
Finalist:
Jan-Hendrik Seelow (Faculty of Law) – Why not talk about one’s own country? An analysis of factors impacting the utilization of Art. 12(4) ICCPR in Dutch domestic litigation on residence permits for long-term residents
Want to learn more? Read the jury report here.