Meet ASU’s 2025–26 Outstanding Faculty Mentors
In physics, mentorship may unfold at a whiteboard covered in equations. In biology, it might take shape in conversations about failure and resilience. In education and higher education, it often emerges through dialogue about justice, identity and voice. Across Arizona State University, mentorship looks different in every discipline, but at its core it reflects a shared commitment to helping scholars grow into their authority.
Arizona State University’s Graduate College presented the recipients of the 2025–26 Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards at the University Club on February 24, 2026, recognizing exceptional faculty who go above and beyond to mentor graduate students and postdoctoral scholars.
This year’s honorees: Antonio Duran, Katelyn Cooper, Igor Shovkovy and Nicole Bowers, represent doctoral, master’s, postdoctoral and instructional faculty mentoring. Together, they demonstrate that while mentoring contexts may vary, the values align: rigor, reciprocity, well-being and a belief in the transformative power of education.
“The best part of being a mentor is creating a lineage of individuals who strive to give back.”
For Antonio Duran (pictured top left), associate professor of higher and postsecondary education in the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation, mentorship is about impact that extends far beyond a single degree.
“I am fulfilled when I see a mentee of mine engaging in their own mentorship of others.”
A first-generation queer Latino cisgender man, Duran traces his passion for higher education to his undergraduate years at New York University, where he began asking critical questions about identity and belonging in educational spaces. Today, his research examines how intersecting systems of oppression shape higher education institutions and how faculty, practitioners and students resist them. As a current 1L JD student at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, he is also exploring how research and legal practice can work together to advance equity and justice.
For Duran, mentorship is neither transactional nor hierarchical. “The best part of being a mentor is the shared becoming that happens in the relationship,” he said. “It’s not just about offering guidance; it’s about thinking alongside someone as they grow into their authority and begin to trust and exercise their own voice.”
In that shared space, he sees transformation. “Mentorship is relational and reciprocal. Through dialogue, challenge, and care, we are both shaped in the process. I learn alongside my students, and together we create work that is more thoughtful and more courageous than either of us could produce alone.”
“The best part of being a mentor is helping my graduate students exceed their own expectations while maintaining their well-being.”
In the School of Life Sciences, Katelyn Cooper (pictured center left) approaches mentorship with a question that has become increasingly urgent in STEM fields: How can students achieve excellence without sacrificing their mental health?
“Watching them realize that they can achieve excellence while still protecting their mental health is incredibly rewarding.”
Cooper leads the Cooper Biology Education Research Lab and directs the Mental Health Division of the Research for Inclusive STEM Education (RISE) Center. Trained as a discipline-based education researcher, she applies theories from clinical psychology to examine how mental health intersects with learning and faculty engagement in academic science. In 2025, her lab launched Fail-Safe Science, a video repository and podcast designed to promote graduate student mental health and reframe failure in science.
Her work has drawn national attention, from an NSF CAREER award investigating the relationship between research experiences and depression in STEM trainees to recognition in outlets such as Science, Nature, The New York Times, CNN and BBC News.
In Cooper’s mentoring philosophy, rigor and compassion are not opposites. They are partners. By helping students reframe failure and prioritize well-being, she is cultivating scientists who are not only accomplished but sustainable.
“I learn from my mentees probably just as much as they learn from me.”
For Igor Shovkovy (pictured center right), professor and faculty head of Polytechnic Science & Mathematics in the School of Applied Sciences and Arts says, “The best part about being a mentor, for me, is the mutual growth.”
Shovkovy earned his doctorate in theoretical physics in Kyiv, Ukraine, before completing postdoctoral training in the United States and Germany and serving as a junior fellow in Frankfurt. Before joining ASU, he held faculty positions and received a visiting professorship for senior international scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has published more than 120 peer-reviewed articles and co-authored the book Electronic Properties of Dirac and Weyl Semimetals.
At the postdoctoral level, mentorship takes on a distinct character. It is less about instruction and more about launching independent scholars, helping them refine research agendas, navigate collaborations and prepare for faculty roles. For Shovkovy, the model he offers is shaped by the mentors who guided his own global academic journey. In his lab and department, mentorship becomes a continuation of a scholarly lineage grounded in rigor, curiosity and international collaboration.
“It’s about thinking alongside someone as they grow into their authority…”
Nicole Bowers (pictured top right), instructor in the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation, centers her mentorship on voice and intellectual courage.
“It’s about thinking alongside someone as they grow into their authority and begin to trust and exercise their own voice,” Bowers said. “When a doctoral student realizes that their questions matter and that they are capable of producing meaningful knowledge and change, that moment is powerful.”
With a PhD in Learning, Literacies and Technologies and a background in molecular biology and chemistry, Bowers brings an interdisciplinary lens to science education and critical qualitative research. She specializes in arts-based methodologies and post-qualitative frameworks, challenging traditional paradigms and encouraging students to apply critical lenses to research and practice.
Like Duran, she views mentorship as reciprocal. “Mentorship is relational and reciprocal,” she said. “Through dialogue, challenge, and care, we are both shaped in the process.”
Congratulations again to:
Outstanding Doctoral Mentor
Antonio Duran, Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation
Outstanding Master’s Mentor
Katelyn Cooper, The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Outstanding Postdoctoral Mentor
Igor Shovkovy, College of Integrative Sciences and Arts
Outstanding Instructional Faculty Mentor
Nicole Bowers, Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation
Since 1987, the Graduate College has recognized outstanding mentoring as central to graduate education. This year’s recipients embody that commitment. Across disciplines and across degrees, they are cultivating scholars who will go on to mentor others, extending a lineage of learning that strengthens the university and the communities it serves.