2025 Oscar Excellence Awards
The OSCAR Excellence Awards recognize students and faculty for academic excellence at George Mason. Listed below are the 2025 award winners.
Student Excellence Award
Anna Garren
Anna is an undergraduate in Computational and Data Sciences. Since 2022, she has served as a research assistant in the Schar school, and researches educational policies with a specific focus on North Carolina student and school data analysis. Additionally, she is a contributing author to the book, School Resources, the Achievement Gap, and the Law: Reconsidering School Finance in US Education Policy. In Spring 2025, she is presenting her research at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Pittsburgh, PA.
Daniel Cardona
Daniel is an undergraduate student studying Civil and Infrastructure Engineering. His research assesses the effectiveness of natural and nature-based features in attenuating waves, a critical hazard to coastal communities, and he has been a Flood Hazard Research Assistant since 2024. In Spring 2025, he is leading a research project in coordination with Fairfax County in which he is investigating potential benefits and trade-offs of flood mitigation strategies considering marsh migration and re-allocation.
Amira Anwar
Amira is an undergraduate student studying Neuroscience. Her research focuses on florescent probe and tool development for early detection of oxidate stress-induced carbonylation in cells. Her work also led her to synthesize a fluorescent probe and characterize it using different spectroscopic methods. Since 2023, Amira has been an OSCAR Research Assistant under the guidance of Dr. Dilek and in Spring 2025, she is presenting her research at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Pittsburgh, PA.
Faculty and Graduate Student Mentor Excellence Award
Dr. Ozlem Dilek
Dr. Ozlem Dilek is an Assistant Professor in the Chemistry and Biochemistry department. Dr. Dilek currently supports four undergraduate students in her research and employs OSCAR Research Assistants to assist in her work. She aims to actively engage with students to help meet their academic and career aspirations. She is described as being deeply committed to her students’ personal success and growth and creates a supportive culture of student scholarship.
Dr. Ali Beheshti
Dr. Ali Beheshti is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering department, and is also the director of Tribology and Surface Mechanics Lab. During his time at George Mason, Dr. Behesti has mentored 15 undergraduate research students and is described as being a sought-after mentor in his department. He strives to be an advocate in their success by providing high quality mentoring with direct engagement in challenging yet rewarding engineering problems.
Dr. Jennifer Victor
Dr. Jennifer Nicoll Victor is an Associate Professor in the Schar School Policy and Government. Dr. Victor has established the Undergraduate Research Assistants Program (URAP) with in the Schar school and employs OSCAR Research Assistants to assist in her research. Since 2016, Dr. Victor has mentored over 100 undergraduate students and aims to foster a culture of mentorship, modeling professionalization attributes to students, and provides opportunities for growth.
Mary Catlin
Mary Catlin is a doctoral student in Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University working as a research assistant for Dr. Allison Redlich in the MoDiLS Lab. While at George Mason, Mary has mentored 41 undergraduate students and takes pride in being a resource to student success and describing the mentoring process as a passion of hers. In Fall 2025, Mary will start as an Assistant Professor in a research-intensive criminal justice program and looks forward to continuing her mentoring efforts in her new role.