The Rutgers Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (RASTL) provides advanced graduate students with the opportunity to meet monthly with faculty and administrators to review issues related to undergraduate instruction and contemporary higher education. In addition, under the auspices of the TA Project (TAP), RASTL offers programs to help graduate students learn to teach from both a general and a discipline-specific perspective.
RASTL comprises the Leadership Team, Faculty Fellows, and Graduate Student Fellows, each of whom participate in regular meetings, planning sessions, and seminars. In addition, the Fellows take part in presenting TAP’s programs and seminars.
Are you a faculty member or experienced teaching assistant at Rutgers who is passionate about effective and inclusive pedagogy? Are you interested in being an active member of a diverse community of fellow educators looking to improve the student experience and develop new teaching skills? If so, we encourage you to email tapweb@grad.rutgers.edu for more information on how to apply to be a RASTL fellow. Please note that graduate student fellows must be in a PhD program, have at least two semesters of teaching experience, be in good academic standing and be recommended by their Graduate Program Director. Applications are considered on a rolling basis when space allows.
Graduate Fellows
Maggie Albright-Pierce
Social/Health Psychology
Teaching Philosophy: Learning is at the forefront of how I design my classes, taking into account evidence-based practices in cognitive and social psychology to ensure students can thrive. The foundation of my teaching philosophy lies in 1) fostering a positive learning environment for all students, 2) building students’ personal connections to the material, and 3) developing student skillsets.
Research: I enjoy exploring the intersectionality of social and health psychology. My research tends to center around motivation and barriers in goal pursuit.
Rebecca Arends
Classics
Teaching Philosophy: I strive for inclusive teaching that encourages my students to think critically about the material and its broader applications. I design my classes as safe spaces that promote reflection where students can engage with the material both as individuals and as a point of community-building in the classroom.
Research: My current research explores how Pamphila, a Greek woman-writer of the first century CE, curates her work and how both she and her work become the objects of others’ curatorial practices in subsequent centuries.
Rohin Biswas
Chemistry & Chemical Biology
Teaching Philosophy: In my experience, I have felt that inquiry-guided learning is most often a more effective learning tool than a traditional lecture setting, and I have often adopted active learning techniques to make the learning more peer-centric. This promotes student engagement and improves the learning outcome for students.
Research: My research focuses on the effective diagnosis of disease conditions in the body by using water-soluble endohedral fullerene based MRI contrast agents.
Marissa Caldwell
Communication
Teaching Philosophy: My goal as an educator is to encourage students to think critically. I strive to create an interactive learning environment that encourages students to actively participate and ask questions. I tailor my instruction to meet the unique needs and interests of my students, and I welcome feedback that guides the course.
Research: My research is in the communication subfield of language and social interaction (LSI), and I specifically study question-answer sequences in U.S. congressional hearings.
Gabriela Constantin-Dureci
Spanish
Teaching Philosophy:I strongly believe in and advocate for the transformative power of education. I consider the classroom a place of growth, where my role is to guide students in exploring new topics, ideas, materials, and languages. In doing so, I regard accessibility and inclusion as guiding principles for my teaching practices.
Research: I research the ways in which listeners use language cues, such as accents, to stereotype Spanish speakers, which may, in turn, affect employment opportunities.
Xiaotong Du
Information Science
Teaching Philosophy: As an educator in information science, my role is to provide a supportive, inclusive, and safe learning environment for students to co-construct knowledge and think critically. My goal is to empower students to solve real-world challenges through the lens of information and equip them with theoretical, methodological, and practical tools.
Research: My research investigates how humans engage with food-related information in everyday life with the aim of promoting sustainability and resilience in food systems.
Zoey Eddy
Psychology
Teaching Philosophy: My teaching philosophy centers around three concepts: 1) open communication and support, 2) fostering critical thinking and applying learned content to one's lived experiences, and 3) creating an inclusive classroom culture.
Research: I study perceptions of multiracial identity, experiences of multiracial people, and how people's understanding of race as a concept influences prejudice and stereotyping.
Eva Erber
German
Teaching Philosophy: My goal as an instructor of German as well as Comparative Literature and Academic Writing is to excite my students for new knowledge. I want to support them in getting confident with navigating the complex world of thoughts, images, and ideas surrounding them. By incorporating various media in my instruction, I strive to create an engaging environment, wherein questions, as well as discussions, are welcomed and encouraged.
Research: My transdisciplinary research currently focuses on how women artists and writers in 1920s Germany use manual techniques in literature, film, design, and doll-making. Thus, they explore a new understanding of artistic materiality and question genre confinements.
Marina Feldman
Education
Teaching Philosophy: I believe in teaching that is grounded in practices of collaboration and reflection. I teach because I like to learn, and I believe in the transformative power of learning together—which requires an ethics of care and an awareness of the strengths we all bring to our learning experiences.
Research: In conversation with my students and colleagues, I focus on what can be learned with and from the community in community-engaged education programs.
Endia Hayes
Sociology
Teaching Philosophy: My philosophy of teaching is dedicated to the engagement of critical teaching and practice in and out of the classroom. Specifically, my pedagogy builds on decolonial and abolitionist means of making critical learning and engagement accessible through interdisciplinary sociological research.
Research: My research focuses on embodied and sensuous archiving of 19th-20th century Afro-Texans. In my dissertation, I argue that this alternative means of archiving renavigates how Black sociality is (re)made in the South.
https://sociology.rutgers.edu/people/doctoral-students/doctoral-student/741-hayes-endia-louise
Sneha Khaund
Comparative Literature
Teaching Philosophy: I consider humanistic education to be crucial for interrogating current events in empathetic, historically situated, and globally interrelated ways. As such, I believe in cultivating a welcoming atmosphere in the classroom that is sustained by student collaborations and creative, in-depth textual engagement using a wide range of media.
Research: I am studying multilingual literary texts from India’s Northeastern borderland to consider how they mediate linguistic identities and national citizenship.
Lindsey Kwok
Physics
Teaching Philosophy: I believe students should learn physics through exploration. I strive to teach primarily through active learning activities and hands-on experimentation, giving students opportunities to struggle, make mistakes, and practice new skills in a safe environment. I aim to equip students with useful skills and inspire curiosity about our incredible universe.
Research: I investigate the violent deaths of stars as supernova explosions by observing and analyzing their light signatures and using models to reconstruct their progenitor systems.
Tamra Lepro
Literatures in English
Teaching Philosophy: In teaching literature I want my students to understand the value of the skills that they’re learning and how it goes beyond knowledge of a particular text. Close reading, analysis, research, and writing are all skills that are highly sought in every work environment.
Research: I’m interested in an ecocritical reading of 17th-century drama as the English colonial project took shape and representations of nature in drama become heightened.
Brittany Marshall
Mathematics Education
Teaching Philosophy: It is my duty to help my pre-service teachers see the brilliance and ability of all their future K-12 mathematics students and bring it out to them. I provide a judgment-free environment where students learn to use questioning and encouragement to foster critical thinking and analysis.
Research: I am interested in the positive mathematics identity development of African American children, particularly Black girls, and the teachers who help cultivate these identities.
Jessica Mingoia
Art History
Teaching Philosophy: I strive to engage students of all backgrounds and abilities by designing courses that are accessible and equitable. I believe in using a variety of teaching methods to create pathways to engagement to all learning styles. I provide clear expectations to ensure all students have an equal chance of success by removing the mystery and subjectivity that come from less structured grading methods.
Research: My research focuses on the apartments of Pompeii and Herculaneum, surveying their locations and using literary and archaeological evidence to reconstruct the living conditions of sub-elite residents.
Nehal Naser
Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Teaching Philosophy: My philosophy of teaching is best captured in the words of bell hooks in Teaching to Transgress, “To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.” In the classroom, my goal is to create an environment where students feel empowered to think critically, ask questions, and work to build the world they want to inhabit.
Research: I am a PhD candidate in WGSS interested in US/Middle East geopolitics, emotion, and Islamophobia. My project examines pivotal moments in US and Middle East history during the 21st century and argues that Arab emotion has been pathologized, policed, and prohibited through the figure of the terrorist and its propensity to be both hyper-emotional yet somehow also apathetic.
Alissa Persad
Civil Engineering
Teaching Philosophy: Creating an inclusive and welcoming learning environment is essential to fostering curiosity and participation from students. As an instructor I strive to help students develop critical thinking and problem solving skills through hands on experimentation, group discussions, and individual assessments. I believe that offering various types of learning activities and assignments helps accommodate to the needs of various type of learners.
Research: My research focus is in concrete repair materials and non destructive testing. I am also interested in identifying concrete materials that are more resistant to deterioration due to climate change.
LaTiana Ridgell
Childhood Studies
Teaching Philosophy: My teaching philosophy centers on the notion that the classroom environment is a place for creating a meaningful and collaborative environment of learning. I approach learning from multiple perspectives to challenge students to broaden their understanding of complex topics and to envision how this information can be integrated into their daily lives.
Research: My research explores how hair care corporations employed culturally specific representations of Black girlhood that appealed to Black mothers and Black girls.
Katherine Sinclair
History
Teaching Philosophy: As an instructor, I work to empower my students as current and future changemakers. I provide them with intellectual tools to think through the unique challenges posed by twenty-first century life. At the same time, I work to create an environment where students are safe, respected, and valued.
Research: I focus on French imperial history as well as the history of science. My dissertation focuses on sovereignty claims and crises in the French Antarctic.
Emily Stevenson
Toxicology
Teaching Philosophy: As an instructor, I aim to 1) help students become critical thinkers who can analyze and critique concepts and methods in science; 2) encourage the development of thought-provoking scientific questions and experimental strategies to explore them; and 3) apply course material to timely, real-world scenarios to encourage student engagement.
Research: My research focuses on mitigating the effects of acute lung injury by altering macrophage phenotype with a novel compound.
Gill Woody
Economics
Teaching Philosophy: As an economist, one of my top priorities in teaching is helping students develop solution methods for economic problems, particularly those that are duplicatable AND demonstrate clear connections to real-world concepts. Furthermore, an instructor is responsible for fostering a healthy and thriving learning environment for their students. I am a strong proponent of the idea that a classroom that feels fun will be a classroom that is engaged, motivated, and eager to continue learning.
Research: Although early in my research stage, my current interests are in behavioral economics and game theory and how they play a role in economic policymaking.
Other Graduate Fellows
Moriah Anthony
Sophia Fox-Dichter
Sriram Raghunath
Anissa Speakman
Faculty Fellows
Leadership Team
Tracie Addy
Ben Arenger
Sharon Stoerger