Mai-Lan Rogoff honored with Manning Prize for Excellence in Teaching

Mai-Lan Rogoff, MD, professor of psychiatry, is one of five University of Massachusetts faculty awarded the 2020 Manning Prize for Excellence in Teaching for outstanding dedication to students and the university. One faculty member from each UMass campus is chosen for the award and given $10,000 in recognition of his or her sustained excellence in teaching and exemplary contributions to the campus community.

The Manning Prize was established in 2016 by UMass Lowell alumni Rob and Donna Manning to honor UMass professors who excel in teaching and service. At UMass Medical School, the honor is given to the faculty member chosen as the recipient of the Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Teaching.

“Dr. Rogoff, for the more than 35 years you have taught at our medical school, you have been an educator who has influenced the careers of thousands of medical students,” said Chancellor Michael F. Collins, at Convocation 2019. “With your pedagogical expertise, you have helped to create numerous courses, you have impacted multiple curricular innovation efforts and you have strived to help your learners appreciate the importance of maintaining their humanity and compassion while dealing with the challenges of their medical education.”

Rogoff is an adult and child psychiatrist with a subspecialty in developmental disabilities. She came to UMMS in 1983, having been a faculty member at Dartmouth and Harvard Medical Schools. At UMMS, she has served as director of the student counseling service, associate residency training director for the Department of Psychiatry and, for almost 20 years, as associate dean for student affairs. She has been recognized for her work with a number of school, state and national teaching awards, with both residents and medical students.

Rob Manning, who is executive chairman of MFS Investment Management and chairman of the UMass Board of Trustees, credits a math professor at UMass Lowell with helping him land the job that launched his career. Donna Manning, who received her nursing degree and her master of business administration from UMass Lowell, was an oncology nurse at Boston Medical Center for nearly 30 years. They are among the largest contributors to UMass in its history.

“Donna and I are proud to recognize these five faculty members for their skill, passion and extraordinary commitment to students,” said Rob Manning, a 1984 graduate of UMass Lowell. “Faculty are the heart and soul of this great university, and we thank these faculty members for going above and beyond to enrich their campus communities and help students reach their full potential.”

“We are so thankful to Rob and Donna Manning for their generous support of our faculty, who make UMass the world-class university it is today,” said UMass President Marty Meehan. “These faculty members inspire and empower students both in and out of the classroom, so this is a wonderful recognition of their efforts.”

This year’s Manning Prize recipeints will be honored during a Zoom event scheduled for June 24. In addition to Rogoff, they are: Tamara A. Rahhal, PhD, senior lecturer of psychological and brain sciences at UMass Amherst; Kristin M. Murphy, PhD, assistant professor of special education, College of Education and Human Development at UMass Boston; Jeremiah A. Ho, JD, associate professor of law at UMass Dartmouth; and Keith B. Mitchell, PhD, associate professor of English at UMass Lowell.