Austin Deray

This year, Graduate Student Life and Graduate and Professional Student Association (GAPSA) created a brand new award to recognize the individuals, offices, and organizations across the university who work tirelessly to advance graduate student success and well-being at George Mason University. The purpose of the Graduate Student Champion Awards is to celebrate the champions who support the success and well-being of graduate and professional students at George Mason and to cultivate and elevate a university-wide culture of graduate student support and success.to cultivate and elevate a university-wide culture of graduate student support and success.

Thomas Wilson is a second-year PhD student in the College of Public Health at George Mason University, where he specializes in Social and Behavioral Sciences. His academic work is driven by a commitment to understanding and improving the experiences of caregivers, particularly those facing structural and social inequities.

In Fall 2025, Thomas earned first place in the university’s Research Poster Competition, presenting a project that examined how caregiver identity status interacts with adverse mental health outcomes. His research focused on depression and extended periods (14 or more days) of poor mental health, using self-reported data to explore how sexual orientation and gender identity may act as modifying factors.

Rania Zaied is a Ph.D. candidate in Communication at George Mason University and the 2025 winner of the university’s Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition. Her research focuses on media representations of marginalized communities, with a particular emphasis on how Muslims are portrayed in comedic media. Her dissertation examines the impact of these representations on Muslim audiences—work she successfully distilled and presented during the 3MT competition at Mason, and at the Council of Southern Graduate Schools Regional 3MT Competition.

Tabitha King is a recent graduate from the George Mason University College of Science who obtained her PhD in Environmental Science and Public Policy in December 2025.

This October, members of George Mason’s Graduate Education team - Graduate Student Life and Graduate Division - attended the biannual Virgina Council of Graduate Schools (VCGS) meeting. Hosted at the University of Virginia this semester, leadership from graduate education offices from universities across the state came together to discuss updates from their campuses, plans to host the 2027 Conference of Southern Graduate Schools in Northern Virginia, mentor/mentee expectations, services and supports for post-doctoral fellows, graduate assistant stipends, enrollment trends, and graduate student professional development.

As a framework for university-wide interdisciplinary graduate education, the Graduate Teaching Academy encourages participants to connect their scholarly activities with career and professional training centered on skill development. Participants will work to create challenging and stimulating learning environments, while attending growth-based trainings providing personal enhancement.

On March 31, 2023, Mason hosted its seventh annual Mason Graduate Interdisciplinary Conference and Three-Minute Thesis (3MT®) Competition