Fellows Directory

Niveen AbiGhannam

Dr. Niveen AbiGhannam is a science communication researcher and educator whose work centers around the strategic and inclusive communication of technical knowledge. More specifically, her research seeks to understand individual, organizational, and social factors that can drive or hinder public engagement with STEM behaviors. She also examines the identities of publicly engaged scientists and engineers and the meanings that they associate with their engagement experiences. On the teaching front, Dr. AbiGhannam has taught Engineering Communication at UT since 2015.

Amelia Acker

Amelia Acker is an assistant professor in the School of Information where she directs the Critical Data Studies Lab. Amelia researches people who build and maintain archives, data technologies, and information infrastructure. Amelia's PTF project is SCiSCHOOL, a science fiction book club that brings graduate students together to discuss the ethics and social impacts of near and future information technologies in our daily lives.

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.

Lucy Atkinson

Samy Ayoub

Angela Beasley

Angie Beasley is an Assistant 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.

 

Deborah Beck

Deborah Beck has won various awards for both teaching and research, including the 2021 Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Classics at the College and University Level from the Society for Classical Studies and a prize for Excellence in Faculty Teaching from the Gamma Sigma chapter of the national Classics undergraduate honors society Eta Sigma Phi (2019) and two Plumer Visiting Research Fellowships at St Anne’s College, Oxford (2017 and 2019). Her main research interest is ancient Greek and Roman epic poetry, especially Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.

Matt Bowers

Dr. Matt Bowers is an Associate Professor of Instruction in Sport Management at the University of Texas at Austin. He studies youth development in and through sports and has published research studies related to the impact of sport participation on creativity and the value of sandlot/unstructured sports for children. His work has been featured in Sports Illustrated, Wired, The Atlantic, and Wall Street Journal, SXSW, and the Aspen Institute’s Sport for All, Play For Life: A Playbook to Get Every Kid in the Game.

Julia Campbell

Dr. Julia Campbell is a clinical audiologist and auditory neuroscientist who specializes in cortical plasticity in auditory disorders such as hearing loss and tinnitus. She serves as the Audiology Graduate Program Director and Audiology Discipline and Training Coordinator for the ACT LEND program. She currently instructs audiology graduate students in clinical training, pediatric audiology, and medical audiology.
 

Robert Carroll

Dr. Robert Carroll is an Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Moody College of Communication. As a member of the Communication Studies department he teaches the 2nd year college-wide Foundation course and an Honors Service Learning and Community Engagement course. Additionally he works as an MBA+ Communication Coach where he leads interactive workshops on storytelling, leadership principles, and authenticity.

Ashley Castleberry

As a Clinical Associate Professor in the Division of Pharmacy Practice in the College of Pharmacy, Dr. Castleberry teaches first- and second-year pharmacy students cardiovascular physiology, pathophysiology, and pharmacology and coordinates the Pharmacy Practice Lab course. As Division Head of Pharmacy Practice, she leads a team of 20 faculty. She is passionate about assessment, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and faculty development.

Wenhong Chen

Dr. Wenhong Chen is an associate professor of media studies and sociology, the founding co-director of Center for Entertainment and Media Industries, and a Distinguished Scholar in the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin.  

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).

Tara Craig

Natalie Czimskey

Natalie Czimskey, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at The University of Texas where she earned all three of her degrees. She began teaching as a doctoral student in 2012 and continued teaching part time until completing her Ph.D. in 2019 when she joined the faculty full-time.  Her primary research area is adult neurogenic disorders with a special interest in traumatic brain injury, though her passion is teaching; she has taught 9 different courses in the past 2 years.

Andrew Dell'Antonio

Andrew Dell’Antonio (he/him/his) specializes in musical repertories of early modern Europe, with a focus on seventeenth-century Italy. His research interests include musical historiography, reception history, and disability studies.

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

Steven Finkelstein

Steven Finkelstein is an Associate 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.

Erica "EG" Gionfriddo

Erica Gionfriddo is a dance artist, educator and somatic researcher who believes in the intelligent body each of us occupies. They are co-founder of ARCOS Dance (arcosdance.com), whose ongoing inquiry probes the intersection of technology and humanity through rigorous interdisciplinary experimentation. ARCOS’ recent work has focused on “hacking” consumer technologies, or repurposing them outside of their intended uses, into performance and developing an embodied cyborgian movement language.

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.

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.

Madeleine Holland

Dr. Madeleine Holland is an assistant professor of instruction in the Department of Communication Studies, as well as the Moody College’s program manager for interdisciplinary education initiatives. She coordinates partnerships among departments within the College and also with other academic units on campus, at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

Kristie J Loescher

Dr. Loescher is a Professor of Instruction in the Management Department of the McCombs School of Business. Her professional and education background includes recognition as a Senior Certified Professional in human resources, as well as a Doctorate in Business Administration from Nova Southeastern University. Prior to her career in academia, she earned a Masters of Public Health from the University of Michigan and worked in the healthcare industry for 15 years in the areas of quality assurance, utilization management, and clinical research.

Joel Johnson

Joel Johnson is a Second-Year Teaching Fellow and served as the First Year Representative on the PTF Steering Committee in 2019.