Individual Fellow Initiatives

This project is aimed at improving learning outcomes in programming courses at UT Austin, specifically targeting ECE312 (Software Design and Implementation I) and ECE360C (Algorithms), but that can potentially be expanded to other programming courses and beyond. The project is designed to enhance students' understanding of fundamental concepts by characterizing the complexity and frequency of feedback provided during completion of assignments.

Student-centered learning strategies have been effectively used to increase academic performance and learning in students. Educators have hypothesized that course content reduction can also improve student learning. However, support for this idea is lacking. In the present project, I am planning to assess whether a content reduction strategy increases the academic performance of upper-division stem students at the University of Texas-Austin.

This project aims to transform academic instruction by integrating art into the classroom. We believe that art can make subjects more engaging and help students connect with the material on a deeper level. By integrating diverse forms of art—such as virtual art, music, film, theater, and more—into the curriculum, we aim to create a more interactive and stimulating learning environment while also supporting students' mental health through therapeutic art sessions.

The development of increasingly powerful computational resources has made computational competencies new core forms of literacy that should be formed as part of basic education across all STEM fields.

Within social work curriculum, the topic of disability is either explicitly absent or medicalized.  The lack of a rich understanding of disability as a cultural experience that intersects with other cultural experiences is concerning given our ethical guidelines of cultural competence and equity.  Additionally, not only are students excluded via this omission, but so are faculty, staff, and social workers working in the field.  Approximately a quarter of the population identifies as having a disability, yet our curriculum barely acknowledges their experiences.

Our project seeks to revitalize the syllabus document as a tool of inclusion. We are interested in making visible the “hidden curriculum” with which students often struggle. The syllabus language, grading and attendance policies, communication and assignment fulfillment methods, course calendar flexibility, course material formats – these can all contribute to developing personal accountability and investment in community.

Biology continues to be seen as a field for science-interested, but math-disinterested students. However, due to the surge in data use in all biology careers, and the focus in research on sequence data, there is a strong need for data skill development in biology degree programs. Math anxiety poses a specific challenge for biology education. A suggestion to overcome this, is an early introduction to data skills in the two-course sequence of Introductory Biology.
 

The primary goal of this community-based service project is to provide experiential learning opportunities for undergraduates interested in statistics and data sciences while supporting the broader Austin-area community. Coordinating with local organizations, students enrolled in some of our SDS courses are gaining hands-on experience in data analysis while exploring authentic contexts. This innovative and collaborative effort provides a community-based model that allows students and local organizations to co-develop and answer real-world research questions.

The aim of my proposed project is then the integration of the seemingly disparate studies of law and
religion. The study of both is an important branch of comparative law and global legal history that I aim

The challenges facing modern engineers are more complex than ever. Current engineering issues such as
algorithmic bias, data security and privacy, and sustainability do not only require technically skilled engineers,
but also engineers who are conscious about structural inequities and biases.

Resources related to accessibility at UT-Austin are not centralized in a single location that makes them easy for
students, staff and faculty to find them. As a result, UT community members cannot efficiently access the
resources they need because numerous different departments and units are responsible for them. Thus,

As the campus community enters a new post-pandemic era, it is clear that one of the most urgent needs following 2+ years of remote and hybrid learning is to create poignant, relevant contexts for pursuing immersive experiential learning. As universities reckon with the challenge of continuing to evolve their value propositions to meet student demand for more industry-relevant experiences, there is an opportunity to innovate how we design and deliver unique pedagogical experiences that connect more deeply with their educational and professional journey.

This project focuses on mental health on campus.  Specifically, the mental health and self-regulation challenges that mindfulness practices have been empirically shown to address: anxiety, depression, focus, and procrastination. There is strong empirical support for these benefits emerging around the 8-week mark of regular practice (10-15 minutes per day), which is feasible in the confines of the semester calendar.

The challenge this project addressed was the enhancement of curriculum at the Steve Hicks School of Social
Work (SHSSW). Social Work is centered in principles from the National Association of Social Workers (NASW)
Code of Ethics which includes a strong and clear commitment to working toward social justice and to dismantle
systemic barriers that keep all people from liberation and wellness. It was hoped that Critical Race theory (CRT)
would enhance our curriculum and provide an additional tool to meet our equity and inclusion mandates to

Traditional science degree programs concentrate primarily on content and are not known for preparing their graduates with other skills needed for scientific careers.

Internships have increasingly become a critical step in the college-to-career transition in the media industries and beyond.

My project, “Developing Experiential Experiences in Organizations,” assessed HDO students’ access to experiential learning
in organizations, particularly in the form of internships; additionally, our program aimed to provide more built-in
opportunities HDO students to engage in experiential learning. To gauge need, I surveyed HDO students. Results
demonstrated that many of our students were graduating without any organizational experience, especially first-generation

Although Cockrell School of Engineering (CSE) undergraduates take a required engineering writing class, which I teach for Chemical Engineering, they typically struggle with writing laboratory and long-form research reports. Helping CSE students to overcome this obstacle matters because writing technical reports prepares engineering students for the writing-intensive work of a professional engineer. Faculty teaching these classes would also benefit from higher quality student work.

When I first became faculty at UT Austin, I inherited an existing course; for a variety of reasons, I felt the need to overhaul all of the lectures. This process, however, proved time-consuming and I found myself unable to complete all of the lectures as originally planned prior to the start of the semester. Moreover, even the lectures that I did overhaul continued to have flaws and I was growing increasingly frustrated with the continued inadequacy of my lessons, despite devoting considerable time and energy to them. This was disheartening and my other responsibilities (e.g.

My initiative will achieve better learning outcomes in undergraduate and graduate students in History and the LBJ School by examining the intersection of history and contemporary policy, specifically its disparate impact on communities of color. Currently, departments, centers, faculty and students work independently of one another and lack valuable opportunities to collaborate. Genuine collaboration has evolved into a rare and difficult concept.

Mentored research defies the traditional higher education approach, which separates research and teaching into distinct activities. Instead, mentored research fully integrates faculty research activities and student learning. In this approach, researchers do not simply carry out their research in isolation with a paid set of PhD-level research assistants. Further, students do not simply learn from in-class lectures or more traditional out-of-classroom experiences, such as study abroad.

Students in pre-modern disciplines face greater challenges in finding productive and engaging avenues for Experiential Learning than students in fields whose connections to current events are more self-evident. Podcasting offers students of ancient Greece and Rome a way to connect with people outside their classrooms, both other students and interested members of the general public. It also requires them to hone their oral presentation skills and to think about how to present the same idea to different audiences, both of which are fundamental to critical thinking.

My project is designed to support engineering students primarily in their freshman and sophomore years, when they struggle the most, resulting in high failing rates. Students do not always implement the best study strategies as they transition from high school to college, and do not prioritize their self-care and well-being. College level coursework is significantly more difficult compared to high school level courses and require more critical and abstract thinking.

For some time now the humanities have been “in crisis,” but the crisis is becoming acute: majors in nearly all humanities fields have been sharply declining, enrollments are down, hiring of tenure-track faculty is down, and, at some colleges and universities across the United States, whole departments are being eliminated. Here at the University of Texas, majors that are growing seem to be ones that promise a literal return on investment (invest money in a degree and get that money back, in the form of a well-paying job upon graduation) or at least suggest an obvious and practical use.