UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Qiushi Chen, Korb Early Career Associate Professor in Industrial Engineering in the College of Engineering, has received the 2026 Graduate Faculty Teaching Award.
The award, established in 1992 by the J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox Graduate School, is presented to faculty members in recognition of outstanding teaching performance and advising of graduate students.
Nominators said Chen has profoundly shaped his graduate students’ academic and professional growth, not only through his teaching, but also through his mentorship, research guidance, attitude, time management and career advice.
Students praised Chen’s ability to begin with broad concepts, gradually narrowing focus with specific examples. They said his approach gives students a clear understanding of what they’re learning. After that, he encourages them to dig deeper so that they begin to understand why it matters as they formulate their own research questions and a path to answering those questions.
“I vividly recall the final project in his class where each student developed a research proposal on a health care-related topic,” a nominator said. “The proposals were scored through a peer-review process that mirrored the blinded-review format of academic conferences. This innovative design provided valuable experience in both giving and receiving feedback, and it gave us insight into how scholarly work is evaluated in the academic community.”
Students said Chen then followed this up with one-on-one interviews and advice on improving their research proposals and writing.
“This combination of structured classroom learning, peer-based evaluation, and personalized mentorship made the course highly impactful,” a nominator said.
His graduate students said Chen instills in them the most valuable qualities of a researcher: intellectual curiosity and critical thinking. The research path is often not linear, they said; it’s filled with dead ends and course corrections. They said Chen is a great communicator who discusses not only models and methods, but the best ways to visualize and communicate findings; and that he is an equally great resource for understanding why research outcomes stall.
“Through conversations with Dr. Chen, I came to realize that research is not a straightforward path but an uncertain yet rewarding exploration — like walking in darkness with a lamp in hand, tracing the paths laid by previous researchers while seeking our own way into the unknown,” a nominator said.
A former graduate student who became an assistant professor said they can trace much of their own successes to Chen’s mentorship.
“His outstanding teaching performance, excellence in graduate advising and profound impact on students make him an ideal recipient of this honor,” a nominator said. “I am deeply grateful for the guidance I received from him as a graduate student, and I am confident that many others have likewise benefited from his commitment to graduate education.”