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UVA Data Science Lecturer Wins University Graduate Teaching Award for "How to Train Your LLM" Course
Bryan Christ, a lecturer at the University of Virginia School of Data Science and recent Ph.D. graduate, received the All-University Graduate Teaching Award this spring for his instruction in DS 5002 “How to Train Your LLM: Engineering LLMs for Custom Tasks.”
Christ designed the curriculum for the graduate-level course with no existing template, creating a structured, accessible learning environment that blended theory, experiential learning, and real-world application.
“How to Train Your LLM” teaches students how to locate credible research, guides them through the use of open-source tools and platforms, and addresses common misconceptions, according to the Graduate Record or someone specific. It includes a semester-long project where each student builds a customized LLM with scaffolded milestones, deepening their technical understanding and creating publicly accessible artifacts that they can add to their professional portfolio.
“The course is without a doubt one of the finest that our program offers, and the student feedback bears that out,” wrote Jonathan Kropko, director of the online M.S. in Data Science program. “Bryan truly crafted this course. LLMs, being such a new subject, have no widely used instructional template, so he invented one.”
Christ has significant teaching experience working with all ages, from fourth-grade students to doctoral candidates. As a teacher, he strives to emphasize the “why” in everything students do so they can understand how their work fits into the bigger picture.
“I have learned that effectively mentoring students not only helps train the next generation of scholars, but also enables me to be more efficient by meaningfully involving others in my work,” he wrote in his nomination packet.
Christ is a Triple Hoo, having earned a bachelor’s degree in education, a master’s degree in public policy, and a doctorate in data science. He is honored to receive the award and extends gratitude to Professor Kropko for his mentorship, his family for their support, and his students for offering constructive feedback.
