Chaucer Langbert won this year’s Graduate Teaching Assistant Excellence Award for their support of PTYS/ASTR 170A1 Alien Earths with instructor Dr. Joe Schools during the Fall 2024 semester.

Chaucer was the sole teaching assistant for this writing-intensive class, providing accurate yet encouraging grading for 50+ essays on a weekly basis, in addition to a final project consisting of a 10-minute video. Chaucer made what was best for the student a priority, including providing for revisions of all rather than just a few of the essays.

Chaucer created their own course material and taught portions of the course based on their expertise in climate cycling and exoplanets. They attended all lectures and participated in both in-class and after-class discussions with students. Chaucer’s efforts were acknowledged in the student evaluations, which were uniformly excellent.

The GTA Excellence award provides $1,000 in support of conference and research travel.

The Graduate Teaching Assistant Excellence Award is an LPL initiative which is intended to promote, recognize, and reward exemplary performance among graduate teaching assistants assigned to PTYS undergraduate courses. The award consists of funding intended to be used toward travel and expenses to professional meeting chosen by the recipient. All graduate teaching assistants assigned to PTYS courses are eligible, whether or not their home department is PTYS.