Brandeis Celebrates Graduate Students With 2026 Graduate Appreciation Week
April 8, 2026
Abigail Arnold | Office of Graduate Affairs
From March 23 to 27, 2026, Brandeis came together to celebrate Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week. With events sponsored by the Office of Graduate Affairs and the Graduate Student Association, this week was dedicated to creating rewarding experiences for the hard-working graduate students across Brandeis’s four schools.
The Office of Graduate Affairs gave out five $25 gift cards to students each day of the way. They also hosted a daily appreciation wall on their Instagram, with faculty and staff sharing special shout-outs for students.
The week also boasted a range of well-attended events. On Monday, March 23, the Office of Graduate Affairs hosted free chair massage and headshot events. Twenty-five students got massages, and sixty-one got new headshots, taken by Global Health Policy and Management master’s student Abraham Agbarakwe.
On Tuesday, March 24, the Graduate Student Association (GSA) hosted Taco Talks, giving students a chance to talk to their GSA representatives about issues affecting them while enjoying a taco bar and entering for the chance to win raffle prizes. Sixty-four students
attended the event. “My favorite part of this year's Grad Student Appreciation Week was helping the GSA plan the Taco Talks lunch,” said Becky Prigge, Assistant Provost for Graduate Affairs. “Mehraveh Bastamkhani, the Director of Programming, and I met at the Brandeis Bookstore to pick out prizes for the raffle and had such a good time choosing items we thought would be appealing to a range of students. The highlight, though, was seeing the instant joy on a student’s face when we pulled his name from the bucket. His excitement was truly contagious, and the whole room broke out into cheers!"
On Wednesday, March 25, the Office of Graduate Affairs hosted a breakfast for students, while the School of Business and Economics hosted a painting and mocktails event. But on Thursday, March 25 came an especially well-attended event: the Graduate Student Association’s hot cocoa bar. During the event, the GSA and staff gave out 108 free insulated travel mugs to attendees!
And, of course, Graduate Appreciation Week would not be complete without the Three Minute Thesis competition! In this year’s fifth annual competition, ten finalists competed to explain their research in just three minutes, using a single slide – and did an incredible job. Peers and faculty came to cheer them on. Read more about their presentations!
Here’s to the graduate students of Brandeis! We look forward to continuing to celebrate you and all you do.
The GSA leaders pose for a photo. From left: Antares Brown, Jaber Qadery, Bipasha Roy, Mehraveh Bastamkhani, and Anant Rose.
All photo credits: Becky Prigge and Mehraveh Bastamkhani