By Jeanne Jackson DeVoe for the Princeton Graduate School
Tom Griffiths will receive a 2026 Graduate Mentoring Award for his exceptional guidance of graduate students. He is one of four Princeton faculty members honored with this award.
“Graduate education is about relationships,” said Rodney Priestley, dean of the Graduate School. “As the mentoring relationships between faculty and students become meaningful and important, that’s when the real magic happens. The faculty we honor with these awards exemplify the commitment to sparking that magic. Their dedication has had a profound impact on the educational experience, scholarship and careers of their students.”
Graduate students and former students nominate faculty for the annual awards, which are co-sponsored by the Graduate School and the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning. A selection committee made up of graduate students, last year’s awardees and senior staff from the Graduate School and the McGraw Center select the winners. The awards honor faculty members from each of the University’s four academic divisions — engineering, natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities.
Griffiths, the Henry R. Luce Professor of Information Technology, Consciousness, and Culture, is the director of the Computational Cognitive Science Lab and, since September 2024, the inaugural director of the Princeton Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence. When he came to Princeton in 2018, he was the first faculty member to be jointly appointed in the departments of Psychology and Computer Science.
Many of the more than a dozen current and former students who nominated Griffiths wrote that they were impressed by his ability to focus on their individual research interests in the classroom and the laboratory as they pursue their careers. Several said that Griffiths has built a culture in his lab that encourages students to be innovative and independent thinkers. “He creates an environment that is intellectually vibrant,” one student said, and also infused with warmth.
Nominators also praised Griffiths as a mentor who gives generously of his time, meeting with students individually every week, offering thoughtful, incisive and personally tailored guidance on their research and pointing them toward papers that speak directly to their work.
Griffiths “has given me a research path that is both exciting and deeply connected to the questions that first drew me to this field,” one nominator wrote. “He has opened doors I did not know existed, offered guidance without agenda, and shown a quiet, consistent care for my growth as both a scientist and a person.”
The winners will be honored at the Graduate School’s Hooding and Recognition Ceremony on Monday, May 25, at 4:30 p.m. on Cannon Green. Each will receive a $2,000 prize and a commemorative gift.
The other faculty recognized this year are Edward Baring, professor of history and human values, Jerelle Joseph, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering and bioengineering and Jamie Rankin, University lecturer, German Department, and director of the Princeton Center for Language Study