Duke Law Faculty Member Recognized for Exceptional Bass Connections Team Leadership

Mara Revkin is the winner of the 2025 Bass Connections Leadership Award. This award recognizes outstanding faculty and staff team leaders for their creativity, intellectual vision and commitment to student mentoring on year-long Bass Connections project teams.

Revkin led the Evidence-Based Humanitarian Aid Delivery in South Sudan team, which partnered with the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) in South Sudan on a project to support evidence-based design and delivery of humanitarian aid, recovery and development programming. Team members helped to develop a novel index that measures subnational variation in six dimensions of “fragility” (economic, environmental, human, political-legal, security and societal) with original data from a household survey of 3,685 South Sudanese respondents across nine different counties. The team includes Duke faculty contributors Erica Field (Economics), Aunchalee Loscalzo Palmquist (Duke Global Health Institute), Kerilyn Schewel (Sanford School of Public Policy), Erika Weinthal (Nicholas School of the Environment) and Gabriella Levy (Political Science, University of Washington). Revkin and her students shared their research with stakeholders at the U.S. State Department and the IOM in Washington, D.C. and co-authored a joint IOM-Duke report that will be published in summer 2025.

Letters of support from student team members describe Revkin’s dedication to mentorship, interdisciplinary collaboration and student development, and shared how her inclusive approach ensured a rich learning experience and encouraged both personal and professional student growth.

Revkin is an Associate Professor of Law and Political Science. Her research and teaching interests are in armed conflict, peacebuilding, transitional justice, migration, policing and property with a focus on the Middle East and Africa.

Revkin opted to use the monetary prize to support the team’s continuing work over the summer.

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Student Testimonials

“Professor Revkin has been an extraordinary leader in our Bass Connections project, fostering an environment where every team member feels valued, supported and empowered to contribute meaningfully. From the outset, she set a tone of inclusivity and encouragement, ensuring that each student’s perspective was heard and respected. Her mentorship goes beyond academic guidance – she actively cultivates a space where students feel comfortable sharing ideas, asking questions and engaging in constructive dialogue.” –Faustin Kambale, Graduate Team Member

“Since I first met Dr. Revkin, she has always shown the highest levels of commitment and compassion. Her intellect and analytical thinking combined with her empathy toward not only every team member but also the many people who this research affects is a rare combination in a leader. Dr. Revkin always treated our research with the thoughtfulness and intentionality that it deserves, and she takes the same approach with her students.” –Katharine Donofrio, Undergraduate Team Member

“Professor Revkin fostered an inclusive and supportive environment by allowing students to tailor their participation to align with their individual academic and professional goals, while ensuring that our contributions advanced the project’s broader objectives. This flexibility enabled us to gain valuable skills and experiences relevant to our career aspirations.” –Renan Marques, Graduate Team Member

“[Professor Revkin] gave us professional liberty to make contributions that were our own, made ample time to meet with us personally as both a mentor and a supervisor, and provided valuable feedback to the work product in a timely fashion. Further, [she] gave everyone the opportunity to share the goals they wished to achieve from participating in Bass Connections and created experiences that were conducive to reaching those goals.” –Jasmyne Hinson, Graduate Team Member

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Learn More

• Check out last year’s winners of this award.

• Check out the winners of this year’s Bass Connections Award for Outstanding Mentorship.

• Sign up for our newsletter to get updates on summer recruitment for 2025-2026 Bass Connections teams.