NEW YORK (TIP) : Manasi Anand, an Indian American doctoral candidate at Cornell University has won the 2024-2025 Cornelia Ye Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for demonstrating dedication and excellence in their teaching responsibilities. The Center for Teaching Innovation (CTI) gives the Cornelia Ye Award, established in 2012 by Mao Ye, and Xi Yang annually to honor an international teaching assistant. Ye and Yang have named the awards in honor of their daughters.
Anand is a PhD candidate in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). Her research involves a multi-scale institutional analysis of Natural Climate Solutions in the forest sector, and she’s found that her research and teaching go hand in hand, according to a university release.
“I think my research has made me a better educator – and my role as an educator has made me a better researcher,” Anand said, adding that running discussion sessions for the Society and Natural Resources and Environmental Governance course “has been among the most memorable and meaningful aspects of (my) PhD.”
Anand takes a creative approach to the classroom, using pedagogical tools that include everything from role play and storytelling to policy simulations. “As an educator in environmental studies, I strive to integrate interdisciplinary scholarly inquiry with place-based learning,” Anand said.
“Drawing from frameworks in ecology, economics, geography, and institutional analysis, I encourage students to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world conservation challenges—whether in their hometowns, on campus, or in culturally unfamiliar settings. Each student brings their own cultural, geographic, and disciplinary backgrounds, enriching classroom conversations in meaningful ways.”
One playful example of Anand’s teaching approaches involved engaging students’ sense of childhood nostalgia. Students watched clips from The Flintstones and The Jetsons to explore the relationships between nature and capitalism.
“I often draw on childhood nostalgia—experiences in nature, cartoons, food—to help unpack complex relationships between humans and the environment,” Anand said. “Ultimately, I want my students to engage diverse ways of knowing in order to develop well-informed, grounded policy solutions.”
For Anand, receiving the Cornelia Ye Award is a validation of how students’ diverse backgrounds and experiences can contribute to a lively and enlivening space for learning to happen. “Receiving the Cornelia Ye Award is incredibly meaningful to me—especially in a world where polarization is growing and the work of education, dialogue, and reconciliation feels more urgent than ever,” she said.
Anand’s research focuses on the institutional and governance dimensions of Nature-Based Climate Solutions (NCS) in forest management. She examines how climate mitigation efforts unfold across global, national (India), and local (Western Ghats) scales, with particular attention to the social, political, and ecological dynamics that shape their implementation.
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