Fellows Directory

Marina Alexandrova

Dr. Alexandrova teaches a variety of courses on Russian history, culture, and language. Her current research interests include international modernism and avant-garde, Russian radical and revolutionary movements, spirituality in Imperial Russia, and, most recently, cultural and spiritual ties between Russia and the United States. Her Signature Course, UGS 303 "Tsars and Mystics," examines (un)Orthodox spiritual practices of Russian rulers from Ivan the Terrible to Nicholas II.

Samy Ayoub

Angela Beasley

Angie Beasley is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Computer Science department at UT, where she teaches Data Mining. Prior to teaching, Angie worked for 15 years as a software engineer on projects for the US Navy, including submarine sonar systems, periscope systems, unmanned underwater vehicles, radar systems, and radio and satellite communication systems. Angie received her MS in Computer Science with a concentration in Machine Learning from The George Washington University and her BS in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin.

 

Mary Beer

Mary Beer is an LCSW-S and is a clinical associate professor and the Assistant Dean for Practicum Education at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work. She has taught Practice and Field, Theories and Methods of Group Intervention, Experiential Leadership, Generalist Social Work Practice, Treatment of Children and Adolescents, and the Advanced Integrative Capstone courses. Mary has integrated compassionate pedagogy, alternative grading, and experiential learning into her courses and these approaches are the focus of her PTF project.

Tanya Clement

Tanya E Clement is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Texas at Austin. Her primary areas of research are textual studies, sound studies, and infrastructure studies as these concerns impact academic research, research libraries, and the creation of research tools and resources in Digital Humanities (DH).

Jules Elkins

Dr. Elkins is the Director of Sustainability Studies and Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Department of Geography and the Environment. Dr. Elkins’ research and teaching is in environmental health, and healthy indoor environments. She is particularly interested in low-dose chemical exposures, especially during the period from preconception to early childhood. Her interests focus on how exposures can be practically and cost-effectively reduced or prevented based on evidence-based models of what interventions measurably work.

Michael Findley

Layla Guyot

Layla Guyot is a data scientist, educator, and researcher, who joined UT Austin during Fall 2020. After pursuing mathematics and physics in undergrad, Layla completed a M.S. in Applied Probability and Statistics, just by chance. She gained some experience as a statistician before combining her aspiration to teach and conduct research through her Ph.D. in Mathematics Education at Texas State University. Her research focuses on designing courses and developing curriculum materials to promote authentic practices and ease the transition to the workplace.

Laura I Gonzalez

BS Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (1988)

PhD University of New Mexico (1998)

Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Santa Barbara (1999-2000)

Peniel Joseph

Peniel Joseph is the First-Year Representative on the 2020 PTF Steering Committee.

Elon Lang

Elon Lang is an Associate Professor of Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches a variety of undergraduate literature survey courses on ethical topics, medieval and early modern studies, dramatic literature, and Experiential Learning courses based in archival research. One example was his 2020-2021 courses called Archival Advocacy in which students learned how to bring archival techniques to bear on a real-world social justice issue facing the East Austin, Texas, community: the closing of one of Austin's historically Hispanic elementary schools.

Karen M Landolt

Karen Landolt is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Business, Government and Society Department and in the Department of Computer Science. She teaches Business Law, Behavioral Ethics, Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property Law, and Negotiations. Her courses have a service-learning component, allowing students to use real-life problems and tasks to increase cultural awareness, learning, and retention. She previously received a Course-developer Award (2020-2022) from the Provost Experiential-Learning Initiative.

Julia Mickenberg

Julia Mickenberg is Professor of American Studies and an affiliate in the Center for Women and Gender Studies, the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, and the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. She is the author of American Girls in Red Russia: Chasing the Soviet Dream (Chicago, 2017) and Learning from the Left: Children's Literature, the Cold War, and Radical Politics (Oxford, 2006) and editor or co-editor of several other books, along with articles in journals ranging from the Journal of American History to Radical Teacher.

Amy Nathan Wright

Amy Nathan Wright got her PhD in American Studies at UT Austin and returned in 2019 as an Assistant Professor of Instruction in Human Dimensions of Organizations.  She is a civil rights scholar completing a book on the Poor People’s Campaign and has taught interdisciplinary courses focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion for the past decade and a half.

Marcelo Paixao

Jonathan Perry

Jonathan Perry is a Texas native who, after completing his BA and MS in physics at Baylor University and his Ph.D. at Texas A&M University, has managed to stick around the state. For his doctoral work he found himself with an unexpected passion for teaching and learning in his field, and so he focused on physics education research. He joined the faculty at UT Austin in 2019 as an Assistant Professor of Instruction.

Shelly Rodriguez

Shelly Rodriguez is a Professor of Practice and instructor for the UTeach program in The College of Natural Sciences. She also directs UTeach Maker, a micro-credentialing program that helps preservice teachers bring innovative, project-based maker practices into their STEM classrooms. As a PTF, she is passionate about improving the career experiences of professional faculty at UT Austin.

Ruth Shear

Ruth Shear is a Professor of Practice in the Chemistry Department, and a Research Educator of the Urban Ecosystems research stream in the Freshman Research Initiative (FRI). After a PhD in Chemical Physics from Griffith University (Australia) and postdoctoral work at Stanford and Cornell, she started as a lecturer at UT Austin in 1996. After running the physical and analytical chemistry teaching labs for 10 years, she helped create FRI in 2006. She has been teaching Research Methods in various forms ever since.

Sarah Sloan

Sarah Sloan is an Assistant Dean for Health Affairs and Clinical Associate Professor in the Steve Hicks School of Social Work. Her practice interests include social justice, mental health, and working with LGBTQIA+ communities. She worked with students at the UT Counseling and Mental Health Center from 2003-2012. Her project is about understanding Critical Race Theory and how it can be added as an additional theory in the curriculum to help social work faculty and students explore inequitable systems that marginalize people.

Stacy Sparks

Stacy Sparks is a Professor of Instruction in the Chemistry Department and focuses much of her teaching on General Chemistry courses. She directs the Chemistry Learning Assistant Program, which provides an experiential learning experience for 80 undergraduate students each semester, building their teaching and leadership skills and preparing them to assist general chemistry and organic chemistry students in the classroom.

 

Gwendolyn Stovall

For the last 10+ years, Gwen Stovall has worked as a biochemist and aptamer researcher in the CNS Freshman Research Initiative, where she leads a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) to identify aptamers, understand the underlying mechanisms and parameters of aptamer selections, and investigate aptamer specificity. As an educator, Gwen is committed to student empowerment and success, and seeks to improve student outcomes by mentoring, teaching, challenging, and engaging students.

Pauline Strong

Dr. Pauline Strong is a Professor of Anthropology and served as director of the Humanities Institute and its Difficult Dialogues Program from 2009 until 2022. She is also affiliated with American Studies, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Human Dimensions of Organizations. Her research focuses on representations and self-representations of indigenous people in the US, and her teaching areas include cultural anthropology, feminist anthropology, culture and health, museum studies, youth organizations, and indigenous cultures and histories.

Ann Thijs

Ann, originally from Belgium, earned graduate degrees in both engineering and ecology. She is deeply committed to undergraduate education and enjoys teaching students about the interconnectedness of the natural world, emphasizing evolutionary and ecological perspectives. Her goal is to help students develop critical thinking and quantitative skills, evident in her courses in introductory biology and upper division ecology. 


 

Di Wang

Dr. Di "Wendy" Wang is an Assistant Professor of Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the International Relations and Global Studies (IRG) program. She teaches courses in international political economy, globalization, and capstone research. She has been the faculty director of a widely successful study abroad program in Singapore and Vietnam. Her research focuses on sovereign wealth funds and politics of foreign direct divestment.

Nick Winges-Yanez

Dr. Nick is a clinical assistant professor at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work leading the Disability Studies program. She is a queer crip feminist activist-scholar interested in critical discourse analysis and how language, signs, and symbols create and perpetuate our realities. Her work also interrogates histories of disability in relation to sexuality, citizenship, and trauma. She is deeply dedicated to teaching and expanding and growing her practice of compassionate and inclusive pedagogy.