Four Yale Faculty Honored with Poorvu Awards

The awards recognize excellence in undergraduate teaching and curriculum innovation.

Apr. 11, 2026 at 12:34am

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A bold, abstract silkscreen print featuring a repeating pattern of colorful, stylized book shapes, representing the creative and interdisciplinary nature of the Poorvu Award-winning faculty's work.Vibrant silkscreen art celebrates Yale's innovative faculty and their transformative impact on undergraduate education.New Haven Today

Four Yale faculty members - Julia Leonard, Elleza Kelley, Jorge Méndez Seijas, and Sigrid Nachtergaele - have been named recipients of this year's Poorvu Family Fund for Academic Innovation Award. The award recognizes faculty whose teaching strengthens Yale College's undergraduate curriculum through intellectual rigor, creativity, and interdisciplinary engagement.

Why it matters

The Poorvu Awards highlight Yale's commitment to providing a transformative undergraduate experience through innovative teaching and curriculum development. The honored faculty represent diverse disciplines, showcasing how interdisciplinary approaches can enhance student learning and engagement.

The details

The Poorvu Family Fund for Academic Innovation Award supports faculty at a formative stage of their careers, providing research funds to further their work. Julia Leonard's research examines how social environments shape children's motivation, while Elleza Kelley's scholarship explores Black spatial practice through literature and visual art. Jorge Méndez Seijas focuses on second language acquisition and heritage language education, and Sigrid Nachtergaele studies how chemical modifications regulate RNA function.

  • The awards were announced and presented on April 10, 2026.

The players

Julia Leonard

An assistant professor of psychology in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, whose research examines the cognitive mechanisms underlying children's effort allocation and how social environments shape motivation.

Elleza Kelley

An assistant professor of English and Black Studies in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and an affiliate faculty member in the American Studies program, whose work focuses on African American literature, Black geographies, and radical spatial practice.

Jorge Méndez Seijas

A senior lector II in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the director of the Spanish Language Program, whose research interests include second language acquisition and instruction, heritage language education, curriculum design, and second language phonetics and phonology.

Sigrid Nachtergaele

An assistant professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, whose laboratory studies how chemical modifications regulate the function of various RNA types and how disruptions to these processes contribute to disease.

Pericles Lewis

The Dean of Yale College, who hosted the event honoring the Poorvu Award recipients.

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The takeaway

The Poorvu Award recipients represent the breadth of excellence in undergraduate teaching at Yale, showcasing how faculty from diverse disciplines are enhancing student learning through creative, interdisciplinary approaches.