In this post, Callum Paterson introduces the winners of Supervisor and Student Tutor of the Year from the Edinburgh University Students’ Association’s Teaching Awards 2025. This is the third post in a series of blog posts celebrating 2025 Teaching Award winners. Callum is the Academic Engagement & Policy Coordinator within the Student Voice team at the Students’ Association.
Introduction
It’ll be no surprise that five of our twelve awards are focused on teaching, given these are the Teaching Awards. These first two are for Supervisor and Student Tutor of the Year. Both of these roles have the potential to massively impact our students’ learning experience, and are again some of the strongest connections students make with staff during their studies.
Supervisor of the Year
With almost 200 nominations, Supervisor of the Year was once again one of our largest categories this year. These nominations recognised supervisors who supported students in writing their dissertations or theses, encouraging them to explore their own interests, and providing helpful resources and support along the way.
This year’s Supervisor of the Year is Leah Macaden, from the School of Health in Social Science. Leah’s supervisees told us that she embodies the spirit of a good supervisor-supervisee relationship – one based on mutual respect. Leah goes out of her way to lift her students up – whether that’s through meticulously reading their manuscripts, suggesting development opportunities, or always giving speedy, detailed, and thoughtful advice. One student told us that Leah “truly cares about students as people” and it’s clear to all of us that the support, guidance, and friendship she gives her supervisees is truly exceptional.
The runners up in this category were Rahul Ranjan from the School of Geosciences, and Isobel Kaihui Wang from Moray House School of Education and Sport.
Student Tutor of the Year
Students play a huge role in teaching – from leading tutorials and seminars, to demonstrating in labs. The tutors nominated in this category provided engaging teaching, supplemented students’ learning with their own knowledge and resources, and created environments where students could engage and deepen their expertise.
Our 2025 Student Tutor of the Year is Nishat Tasneem, from the School of Social and Political Science. Nishat is well-known by her students for providing a well-crafted package of pre-reading before her classes. However, she carefully structures her teaching so there is always time to make sure everyone had not just read but had truly understood the social work concepts they had read in their pre-reading and found ways to apply this to real-world examples. She also took the time to understand how neurodivergent students in the class would best engage and took feedback from the whole class before immediately implementing the methods they found the most useful, adjusting in real time to ensure they had everything they needed for success.
The runners up in this category were: Peilin Jiang and Will Zhang, both from the Business School.
Congratulations again to our winners in these categories, and well done to everyone who was nominated. It’s an understatement to say that without all of you, students’ time at Edinburgh would be entirely different.
Join me next time, to meet our three Teachers of the Year.
Callum Paterson
Callum Paterson is the Academic Engagement & Policy Coordinator within the Student Voice team at the Students’ Association. Alongside coordinating the Teaching Awards, he works with Programme and School Representatives as well as the Vice President Education, supporting and empowering them to make their voices heard on the issues that matter most to them.
