Professor Harry Tuller honored with C2C award

February 18, 2020

Professor Tuller has been recognized with a Committed to Caring graduate award for his personal and enthusiastic mentorship style and proactive outreach to students.

Keeping each of his students’ needs in mind, Professor Harry Tuller’s mentorship style is personalized and enthusiastic. As one student notes, he is “an amazingly kind and curious man, who is willing to help anyone who shows up and tries.” 

When Tuller notices that a student is losing enthusiasm for their work, he reaches out to set up a meeting. Proactive outreach is a mentoring guidepost identified by the C2C program. One of his students had to take a break from school owing to anxiety and depression, and Tuller provided the necessary support for the student to get help. He later aided the student’s successful transition back into work. “[Tuller] met with me on multiple occasions,” the student said, “to help me parse through my own anxieties and concerns with anecdotes from himself and his past students.”

Every student responds to challenges and rewards differently, Tuller says, so it is important to provide advising suited to the individual. Learning what types of stressors affect each student can go a long way in alleviating anxiety-provoking situations for students and in helping students manage their own stress.

In order to keep moving forward, Tuller urges students to “communicate their research goals clearly and convincingly and to be open to constructive criticism.” Tuller’s consistent contact and tailored support has contributed to his students’ resounding success.

The Committed to Caring program is an initiative of the Office of Graduate Education and contributes to its mission of making graduate education at MIT “empowering, exciting, holistic, and transformative.”