UCL Education Awards: Double win for UCL Economics PGTA and PhD candidate Damian Phelan

UCL Economics PGTA and PhD candidate Damian Phelan was awarded the Student Choice Award for Inspiring Teaching Delivery at the 2023 UCL Education Awards, a category in which he competed with experienced lecturers, and which received the highest number of nominations overall.

Damian was also awarded the UCL Education Award for Best PGTA. This double success is particularly remarkable as Damian teaches almost 400 undergraduates on the Econ0002 module.

Damian’s win marks the fourth Econ0002 PGTA who has won the UCL Education Award or Student Choice Award (or both!) since 2018 when recent PhD graduate, Dr Gonzalo Paz Pardo (now a Senior Economist at the European Central Bank), was recognised.

PGTAs on this module have also won the last three years in a row (Aoife Horan in 2021, Ahmed Saade in 2022 and Damian in 2023).

“Damian said of his win, “I was delighted just to be nominated, so it was a fantastic surprise to win both awards. It means so much to be recognised by both students and teaching colleagues. I could not have imagined a better way to end the academic year.”

“Incoming Head of UCL Department of Economics Professor Fabien Postel-Vinay said, “I would like to thank Damian, and all our PGTAs, for their outstanding contribution to the learning experience and success of our students. Congratulations, Damian, on this well-deserved achievement!”

“UCL Pro-Vice Provost (Education – Student Academic Experience) and Department of Economics Professor Parama Chaudhury said, ‘Congratulations, Damian! Econ0002 is our largest module – it’s required for all BSc Economics students (and our year abroad and placement programme students) as well as servicing the needs of several joint degrees including Politics, Philosophy and Economics. All our PGTAs are doing an exceptional job in this very important module, and I’m pleased their amazing work is being recognised by students and the university alike.’