Student Employee of the Year
Student Employee of the Year
Congratulations to Harvard's 2026 Student Employees of the Year!
Hasan Tauha, Student Library Assistant at the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library; Graduate Student Employee of the Year
Aaron Moruf, Software Engineering & Integration, Entrepreneur-in-Training at Cap20AI; Undergraduate Student Employee of the Year
Out of over 6,000 student employees at Harvard, the winners of this year's SEOTY award were selected from 37 outstanding nominations. Congratulations, Hasan and Aaron! And thank you to ALL student employees for your contributions to the workplace and community at large.
The Student Employee of the Year (SEOTY) Award is a prestigious honor awarded to one undergraduate and one graduate student each year. Students are nominated by their supervisors based on their outstanding contributions and achievements.
Supervisors are encouraged to nominate their student employees who meet the following criteria:
- Currently enrolled at Harvard
- Worked for any duration between June of the previous year and May of the current year
- Employed on OR off campus
- Federal Work-Study Eligible OR non-Federal Work-Study eligible
Graduate Assistants and Graduate Teaching Assistants are eligible for this award assuming other requirements are met.
How the Program Works
This program provides our campus with a wonderful opportunity to recognize and reward the vital work that our student employees perform both on and off campus, in a variety of different roles. Supervisors for both on and off campus agencies can nominate student employees who they feel deserve recognition for their job performance.
A selection committee chooses one Undergraduate Student Employee of the Year and one Graduate Student Employee of the Year. The SEOTY winners are announced in mid-April during our National Student Employment Week Award Banquet!
Reasons to Nominate Your Student Workers!
- Being nominated is a great resume-builder and morale booster for students.
- Winners receive a plaque from the Student Employment Office along with Harvard gear!
- Allows you to showcase your outstanding students on a broader platform to enhance their visibility and recognition.
- Highlights your student as a role model for the campus community!
Undergraduate Student Criteria
Supervisors should choose TWO of the five categories listed below in which student employees demonstrated excellence. Each category bears the same weight in the judging process.
- Making distinctive contribution to the community with their work
- Impacting the university and/or beyond the university community that will be felt after the job is complete
- Inspiring others to serve the university or the community.
- Demonstrates empathy and compassion for others in their work.
- Understands the importance and ongoing commitment to social impact and belonging efforts in their work, campus and/or community.
- Searches for social impact and belonging in projects, discussions, and problem solving at work.
- Motivates and inspires others through encouragement and by building trust.
- Strives to take the lead in workplace scenarios and are open to changes/new ideas.
- Passionate in the act of mentorship and training of fellow student employees.
- Uses technology to improve efficiency and productivity of their work.
- Manages technology to integrate information to support relevant, effective and timely decision making.
- Develops userful ideas that are new, better or unique.
- Multi-tasks well in a fast-paced environment.
- Solves problems and makes decisions using sound, inclusive reasoning and judgment
- Gathers and analyzes information from a diverse set of sources and individuals to fully understand a problem.
Graduate Student Criteria
Supervisors should choose TWO of the four categories listed below in which student employees demonstrated excellence. Each category bears the same weight in the judging process.
- Acknowledges the support and contributions of others in achieving results.
- Demonstrates empathy and compassion for others.
- Flexible, open and receptive to new information, ideas and approaches.
- Shows respect and value for the unique contributions of each associate.
- Suggest and helps implement an idea that has a positive, tangible impact on the department or brings positive recognition to the department.
- Collaborates well with peers, manager, department leadership and unit stakeholders.
- Employs appropriate methods of persuasion when soliciting agreement.
- Addresses problems constructively.
- Passionate about mentorship and training fellow student employees.
- Acts as an agent of change to support the implementation of new ideas.