Fellows Directory

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.

Daniel Birkholz

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.  

Julia Clarke

Hands-on research experiences for undergraduates offer unique active-learning experiences with real-world questions. These experiences create communities and improve 4-year graduation rates. They may also help create a student body and alumni population that recognize the importance of the research mission of large R1 universities.

Patrick Davis

Professor of Pharmacy (Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry). Teaches required and elective pharmacy coursework in drug metabolism, infectious diseases, and interprofessional health education. Also teaches a First-Year Signature Course on historical pandemics and their impact on society.

Janet Davis

Jade DeKinder

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.

Peniel Joseph

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

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.

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.

Vicki Packheiser

As a Provost’s Teaching Fellow, Vicki Packheiser is transforming experiential learning in Social Work’s foundational courses. This two-course sequence has long required 45 hours of service learning per course with a community agency. Social Work pre-majors contribute 10,000+ hours of service to the Austin community, serving as UT ambassadors while they gain experience that grounds their academics in future years. But the implementation has not lived up to the potential.

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.

Dixie Stanforth

Dixie has been teaching in Undergraduate program in Kinesiology & Health Education since 1985. She has developed a successful curriculum for pre-allied health professionals within KHE, providing both theoretical content and practical experiences in a number of Specializations. She is a spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise, and serves on the Editorial Board for the ACSM Health & Fitness Journal. She has been a fitness editor for Shape magazine and a 5-star speaker for IDEA, presenting extensively at both national and international conferences.

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.

Katie Tackett

Katie is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Special Education, where she also serves as the Undergraduate Advisor. Her PTF project is aimed at building community and communication throughout a Special Education major's time on the Forty Acres.

Sean Theriault

Project Title: COLA’s Teaching Mentor Program 

 

Jessica Toste

Dr. Jessica Toste is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at The University of Texas at Austin. She has research affiliations with the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk and the Texas Center for Equity Promotion. Toste was the Chair of Provost’s Teaching Fellow in 2022-2023.

Steven Vokes

Louis Waldman

Louis Alexander Waldman is an Associate Professor in Art and Art History (College of Fine Arts) with a joint appointment in French and Italian (Liberal Arts). Previously Louis worked in Florence, Italy, as Assistant Director of the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti.