Aaron Rapport Teaching Prize
The Aaron Rapport Teaching Prize is a student nominated award given annually to a member of the POLIS academic community in recognition of exceptional teaching. The award serves as a formal acknowledgement of an individual’s commitment to teaching excellence, whether through their level of commitment to student development, their innovative instruction, or their ability to make a complex topic comprehensible.
Selection and Eligibility
The prize is unique in that it is determined entirely by student feedback. Each year, the Department invites students to nominate an academic who has significantly enriched their education in Politics and International Studies.
- Criteria: The selection committee considers the qualitative substance of student testimonials rather than merely the volume of nominations.
- Eligibility: The award is open to the full breadth of the Department’s teaching staff, including University Professors and Lecturers, College Lecturers, Postdoctoral Researchers, and PhD students.
- Scope: Nominees may be recognised for their work as lecturers, supervisors, or seminar leaders across any field or subfield within the Department. While the prize was historically limited to undergraduate teaching, it was expanded in 2023 to include postgraduate instruction.
The winner of the 2025 Aaron Rapport Teaching Prize is Dr Ilias Alami
When students were asked to nominate an academic who has exhibited excellence in teaching in the 2024-25 academic year, Dr Ilias Alami received glowing reviews. Dr Alami is an Assistant Professor in the Political Economy of Development in the Centre of Development Studies and POLIS. Read the announcement of the 2025 winner.
Commemoration: Dr Aaron Rapport (1980–2019)
The Department has recognised excellence in teaching for many years, awarding the POLIS Teaching Prize to both established professors and those at the beginning of their academic careers. In 2020, the award was renamed the Aaron Rapport Teaching Prize to honour the memory of Dr Aaron Rapport, a beloved colleague known for being one of the most popular and engaging lecturers in the Department.
His lectures and supervisions on US foreign policy and international relations drew some of the highest praise ever given by POLIS students for their originality, captivating delivery, and characteristic humour. Beyond the classroom, he led the Department’s outreach initiatives, encouraging younger students to engage with the study of politics at the degree level.
In 2018, Dr Rapport was awarded the University’s Pilkington Prize for excellence in teaching—a testament to his enduring impact on the Cambridge academic community. Cambridge University produced a series of short films about the 2018 Pilkington Prize winners.
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Even though he developed cancer in 2015 (and wrote a very funny blog about it), he carried on teaching until shortly before his death in June 2019.
Here are just a few examples of feedback from Aaron Rapport's 2018-19 students:
"Dr Rapport should be commended for running what is unequivocally the best paper I have taken at Cambridge. It is flawlessly designed and executed. My enjoyment of this paper is largely a result of Dr Rapport's teaching and organisation."
"I found Dr Rapport's lectures by far the most engaging of my lectures this year. I really appreciate that he speaks in a clear and comprehensible way, and also adds humour in. I never came away from the lectures confused about anything, and felt that the lectures gave a very balanced perspective."
"Dr Rapport - outstanding supervisor, very helpful with first long essay, put much time and effort in over and beyond which was very much appreciated"
"Aaron Rapport- really good feedback on my (long) essay and recommendations for further reading. Fun and interesting supervisions, he was really enthusiastic about the paper and my essay title. I really enjoyed doing the essay and feel like I have learnt a lot from Dr Rapport."
Past winners of the Aaron Rapport Prize are:
2024: Dr James Wood
2023: Professor Dennis Grube
2022: Dr Devon Curtis
2021: Dr Evaleila Pesaran
2020: Professor Jude Browne
Past winners of the previous POLIS teaching prize:
2019: Dr James Wood and Dr Ashley Walsh (jointly awarded)
2018: Dr Tom Hopkins
2017: Dr Tom Hopkins