Skill-Building

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Things a Physicist Rarely Talks About (Grow PoLS)

Date
Fellow(s)

On October 25-26, 2020, Rice University hosted the Grow PoLS Virtual Workshop: Growing Equity, Inclusion and Diversity for the Physics of Living Systems. The purpose of this PoLS (Physics of Living Systems) workshop was to grow the ecosystem of physics by recognizing the systemic barriers that exist in STEM fields at all education and career levels, by building alliances, and by sharing best practices to overcome these systemic barriers.

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Entrepreneurship Minor, McCombs School of Business

Date
Fellow(s)

As part of his PTF Initiative, Luis Martins founded the Entrepreneurship Minor within the McCombs School's Rosenthal Department of Management. The Entrepreneurship Minor is available to all undergraduate students at UT Austin, and develops entrepreneurial mindsets and skillsets that equip students to have impact on organizations and society as startup founders or as employees in established organizations.

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Additional Initiative Funding (COLA)

Date
Fellow(s)

PTF Julia Mickenberg worked with her Graduate Assistant and collaborator, Ricky Shear (Department of English), on a survey of UT liberal arts alumni aiming to find out what alumni valued about their liberal arts degrees and how they felt those degrees limited them. The College of Liberal Arts provided Mickenberg with additional funding in order to broaden the scope of the survey from department-specific alumni to the entire College.

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Engineering Sentences at a Writing Center: A Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration (College Composition and Communication Regional Conference)

Date
Fellow(s)

D'Arcy Randall gave a virtual presentation about the pilot program developed as part of her PTF Initiative at the College Composition and Communication Regional Conference at the University of Southern California on Dec. 19, 2020.

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Engineering Sentences through the Texas Snowpocalypse: Results of a collaboration between a University Writing Center and an Engineering Writing Course (CCCC)

Date
Fellow(s)

D'Arcy Randall gave a co-authored presentation about the program developed as part of her PTF Initiative at the Conference on College Composition and Communication on February 16, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois, themed "Doing Hope in Desperate Times." The presentation was part of a session featuring Writing Centers titled "Cross-Disciplinary Collaborations to Promote Transfer and Self-Efficacy," which was among hundreds of sessions of varied topics, formats, and scholarly approaches for over 1000 attendees. 

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Bridging Rhetoric and Engineering (IPCC)

Date
Fellow(s)

“Bridging Rhetoric and Engineering: Qualitative Results from a Writing Center Program to Improve Engineering Undergraduate Writing,” Proceedings from IEEE ProComm, 2024. Pittsburgh, PA (July 14-17, 2024). I delivered this co-authored conference paper at the IEEE ProComm conference. See the link for the paper.

Headshot of Ann Thijs.

Ann Thijs

Current Fellow
Biology
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College of Natural Sciences
Initiative Focus
Skill-Building

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. 


 

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Gwendolyn Stovall

Current Fellow
Freshman Research Initiative
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College of Natural Sciences
Initiative Focus
Mentorship
Skill-Building
Student Success

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.

Lydia Steinman

Former Members
Nutritional Sciences
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College of Natural Sciences
Initiative Focus
Active Learning
Skill-Building
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