Honors and Awards

Our graduate students and graduate alumni excel in all areas of teaching, research and service, supported by outstanding faculty mentors, within the academy, and in all areas of society and industry. The Graduate School acknowledges the breadth of these accomplishments and contributions with a number of awards and recognitions. Graduate honor society memberships are also available to graduate students who have distinguished themselves in academic and leadership roles. 

View a sortable list of past winners since 2001

Graduate Student Awards

More than 25 graduate students are recognized annually for outstanding achievement in research, scholarship, and service. Winners of the teaching, service, dissertation and thesis, outstanding interdisciplinary student, and graduate student of the year awards are selected by the Graduate School; outstanding master's and doctoral students in each college are selected by their respective college.

Faculty and Staff Awards

• Outstanding Mentor Award - annual, Graduate Education Week
  The Graduate School honors faculty members for their role in supporting, encouraging, and promoting a positive and inclusive scholarly and teaching environment, and for contributing to the professional and personal development of graduate students.
• Outstanding Advising/Mentoring Award (A/P Faculty and Staff) - annual, Graduate Education Week
  The Graduate School honors A/P faculty and staff for their outstanding development and support of graduate students.
• Faculty Mentor of the Month - monthly
  With this program we recognize and highlight the important role faculty members play in supporting, encouraging, and promoting an affirmative, inclusive scholarly and teaching environment. 

Award for Alumni

The Graduate Alumni Achievement Award recognizes exemplary achievement and contributions to profession, discipline, community or society. The award is presented annually at the Blacksburg graduate commencement in December.

Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Honor Society

The Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Honor Society commemorates the first African American to earn a doctorate degree from an American university (Physics, Yale University, 1876). Virginia Tech chartered a chapter in 2014, which will be inducted at the April 2015 ceremony at Yale University. We join a group of elite doctoral-granting institutions, including founding institutions Yale and Howard University. We were granted a charter because of our outstanding track record of training scholars traditionally underrepresented in the academy.