An economist and a statistician have been chosen by The Graduate Council and the Graduate Division to receive the first annual Dissertation Advisor/Mentor Awards. The Doctoral Dissertation Advisor/Mentoring Award was instituted the Graduate Council and the Graduate Division to recognize faculty who have made outstanding contributions to the training of advanced graduate students at UCR

Professor Prasanta Pattanaik, Professor of Economics, has been at UC Riverside since 1991. In that time he has directed six dissertations to completion and has served or is serving as a committee member on seven others. A specialist in microeconomic theory and author or co-author of seven books and more than eighty scholarly papers, Professor Pattanaik is noted for his ability to "generate abiding interest and enthusiasm" in his students for one of "the most difficult fields of economics." Cited as sensitive to the needs of his students, generous with his time, and possessing the utmost intellectual integrity, Pattanaik's students universally praised him as both a guide through the travails of the pursuit of the Ph.D. and as an exemplary role model for their own careers as teachers and researchers.