Fellows Directory

Tasha Beretvas

Tasha Beretvas is a professor in the Quantitative Methods program in the Department of Educational Psychology. She joined UT's faculty in 2000. Beretvas has served as the Quantitative Methods program chair and the College of Education's Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies. She is currently the Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs. She is also a member of the board of directors for the college's Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk and a faculty associate of UT's Population Research Center.

Ruth Buskirk

Ruth Buskirk earned her A.B. at Earlham College, M.A. at Harvard University, and Ph.D. at the University of California at Davis. Her research on behavior and physiology includes work of orb-weaving spiders, dragonflies, baboons, and unusual animal behavior before earthquakes. She has taught biology courses at the University of Texas at Austin for over 35 years and currently works in research on student mindset and metacognition, coaching reading of scientific papers and assessing teaching effectiveness. 

Steven Finkelstein

Steven Finkelstein is a Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.S. degree from the University of Washington in 2003, his PhD in 2008 from Arizona State University, and from there he took a postdoctoral position at Texas A&M University. In 2011 he earned a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship which he took to the University of Texas in Austin, where he was hired on as faculty in 2012. His research focuses on the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early universe, and the interplay of these sources with reionization.

Vernita Gordon

I did my undergraduate work at Vanderbilt, with a double major in physics and math, and my Ph.D. work in physics at Harvard. At both institutions, I saw and experienced the positive difference that caring, committed instructors and a nurturing university community can make in students' lives. I have been a faculty member in the Physics department at UT Austin since 2010. I have taught introductory calculus-based mechanics for Physics majors, a Plan II Physics course for liberal arts honors students, and an upper-division course on Biological Physics.

Cynthia LaBrake

Cynthia LaBrake is a former Chair of the Provost's Teaching Fellows. Cynthia was instrumental in the design and creation of the Provost's Teaching Fellows program, first as a faculty affiliate of the Center for Teaching and Learning, and then as a member of the 2015 cohort of Teaching Fellows. She served as 2017 Chair. Cynthia's current interest is in serving the CNS as the Badging Fellow. In this role, she is leading the college effort to create sustainable structures for the development and awarding of badged micro credentials.

Calvin Lin

Calvin Lin is a computer science professor at the University of Texas. He does research in compilers, with a current focus on security and scalable and precise analysis, including pointer analysis. He also has interests in microarchitecture, and he has written a textbook with Larry Snyder called Principles of Parallel Programming. His research also includes increasing programmer productivity by improving system performance, correctness, and ease of programming. He is a member of the UT Academy of Distinguished Teachers and received the UT Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award in 2011.

Christina Markert

Jen Moon

Jennifer (Jen) Moon is a Professor of Instruction in the Department of Molecular Biosciences and the Assistant Dean for Non Tenure Track Faculty in the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. She earned her Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Indiana University studying regulated gene expression, and completed her postdoctoral work at University of Texas at Austin in 2007. Dr. Moon regularly teaches Advanced Introduction to Genetics, Cell and Developmental Biology Lab, and an undergraduate teaching assistant (UGTA) training course.

Chris Moriates

Alison Norman

Dr. Alison N. Norman is an Associate Professor of Instruction and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin. She is also a UT Austin Provost's Teaching Fellow, a 2019 Regent's Outstanding Teaching Award recipient, a 2017 President's Associates Teaching Excellence Award recipient, and a 2017 College of Natural Sciences Teaching Excellence Award recipient. Alison works to improve the experience of students in computer science.

Nico Osier

Nico Osier (they/them) is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing and Dell Medical School Department of Neurology. They love engaging students in their Genetics in Health Care course by applying principles of universal design for learning and experiential learning. They are an Experiential Learning Initiative Ambassador and a Provost Teaching Fellow. They are well-known for their stylized syllabuses, creative project, and epic use of Bitmoji.

Kristin Patterson

Kristin Patterson is the Fourth-Year Fellow Representative on the 2021 Provost's Teaching Fellows Steering Committee.

Michael Scott

Cathy Stacy

Michael Starbird

Michael Starbird is a University Distinguished Teaching Professor of Mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin. He has been at UT his whole career except for leaves, including to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He has received more than fifteen teaching awards including the Mathematical Association of America's 2007 national teaching award, the Minnie Stevens Piper Professor statewide award, the UT Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award, and most of the UT-wide teaching awards.

David Vanden Bout

Project Title: Data Drive Course Design: Differentiation of Chemistry Concept Retention between Standard and Hybrid Courses. 

Steven Vokes