CTL Graduate Fellows

Addison (he/him) is a fourth year PhD candidate in the department of Biology in the School of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on the transcriptomic basis of interactions between plants and mutualistic bacteria when the host plant is also colonized by pathogenic nematodes. Before coming to Penn, Addison taught high school biology for several years. During this time he received his M.Ed and was a part time administrator for an interdisciplinary, project-based learning academic program at the school where he taught. Prior to teaching high school, Addison was an outdoor educator and tropical field ecology research intern. At Penn, he has served as instructor, teaching assistant, tutor, and grader for various biology courses and organizes the annual High School Science Day put on by the Department of Biology.

Greg is a fifth year PhD student in the department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM). He is studying soft pneumatic actuation for applications in robotics and is advised by Dr. Mark Yim and Dr. James Pikul. Greg has served as a TA for undergraduate dynamics (MEAM211) and graduate mechatronic design (MEAM510). He aims to develop and employ teaching practices that promote classroom community, contextualized transfer of knowledge, and student-centered learning. Prior to his PhD, Greg completed his BS in ME at Villanova University and his MS in ME at Stanford University. He was previously employed as a forensic engineer at Exponent consulting. 

Lourdes Contreras is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in the Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies department. Her academic interests encompass the themes of exile and ecological representations in women-written Italian literature. Her interest in displacement and rootedness stem from the presence of the root metaphor in Italian literature from the fifteenth century to the contemporary period and the implications that this metaphor has on broader political and theoretical issues. She is interested in creating interdisciplinary models of language pedagogy in language classrooms and building equitable and inclusive lessons and syllabi in both content and language courses. She has contributed to the The Pedagogical Repository of Italian Media Activities (PRIMA), an open education resource for Italian teachers and students that provides authentic artistic content and diversifies representation in language materials. Lourdes has also presented at the American Association of Teachers of Italian on the inclusion of Ecocriticism and eco-conscious content in Italian literature courses. Lourdes grew up in Chicago and completed her BA in Italian and political science at DePaul University.

Jaydee is a 4th year PhD candidate from the department of Earth and Environmental Science in the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS). Her research focuses on a sub-category of microplastics known as tire- and road-wear particles. Currently, she studies these particles in road dust from the streets of Philadelphia and will follow the transport of the particles via stormwater runoff into the Schuylkill River. She is deeply committed to research that studies anthropogenic pollution through geochemistry and mineralogy. Through her department, she has been a TA for classes like Intro to Environmental Science and Intro to Geology. She looks forward to engaging with graduate students across Penn and is particularly interested in creating engaging and safe atmospheres for students.

Ari S. Gzesh, MSW is pursuing a PhD in Social Welfare at UPenn’s School of Social Policy and Practice, and is a Fellow in Leadership Education and Adolescent Health at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. They are earning certificates in both Implementation Science and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, so as to promote integration between social sciences and humanities, particularly in the use of theory for conceptualizing research design. Gzesh has been awarded the Penn Marymount Fellowship, as well as funding through the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics, and the Eidos LGBTQ+ Health Research Initiative. Prior to their doctoral studies, Gzesh engaged in direct practice with marginalized young people for over a decade, as both an educator and therapist. A Teach for America alumni, Gzesh spent eight years in traditional and alternative classrooms, spanning from secondary schools to San Quentin Prison to domestic violence shelters. After earning a Master of Social Work from Columbia University, they worked as a community-based clinician in the Bay Area of California, supporting system-involved youth experiencing sexual exploitation, substance use, and housing instability. 

Gzesh is passionate about improving psychosocial and health outcomes for sexual/gender minority youth, by exploring how chosen families can provide corrective experiences for past attachment ruptures, embodied oppression, and complex trauma. Gzesh uses critical mixed methods to leverage cultural wealth embedded in queer communities for research-informed practice and practice-informed research.

Liz is a third-year doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication where she studies the intersection of collective memory and national identity as it plays out in (and is enabled by) the news media. She is especially interested in the linkages between journalism and culture, and what these linkages mean for political subjectivity, the public sphere, and democracy globally. So far at Penn, Liz has had the opportunity to serve as a teaching fellow for required Communication survey courses, like Critical Approaches to Popular Culture, taught by Dr. Jessa Lingel, as well as elective courses like Critical Perspectives in Journalism Studies, taught by Dr. Barbie Zelizer. Liz earned her bachelor’s degree in International Studies and English Literature from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota (where her love of teaching began with a stint as an undergraduate writing tutor!).

Kyndall received her B.S. in Biochemistry with a minor in psychology from Hampton University in Hampton, VA. Kyndall is a former DI volleyball player, which sparked her interests in concussions and traumatic brain injury. As a Neuroscience PhD candidate in Dr. Kacy Cullen's lab, she is researching how diet influences post traumatic brain injury damage. Kyndall serves as the Ernest E. Just Biomedical Society President, a Center for Undergraduate & Research Fellowships (CURF) Graduate Fellow, Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) Fellow, and is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellow. Kyndall works with The Franklin Institute to organize annual CRISPR workshops for high schoolers, mentors high school students internationally and nationally through Lumiere Education, and mentors undergraduate students on their projects in her lab. Kyndall was born and raised in central Maryland, so in her free time she loves to eat crabs, go to Ravens football games, and go on bike rides.

Aoife is a 3rd year PhD candidate in the BE department advised by Dr. Arjun Raj. Her work focuses on quantifying cellular memory, with future applications in epigenetic immunoengineering. Aoife holds a bachelor's degree in Bioengineering: Biotechnology from the University of California, San Diego, where her work focused on the role of tumor draining lymphatics in responses to immune checkpoint blockade in HNSCC. While at Penn, Aoife has served as a teaching assistant for three bioengineering courses, and as a research mentor for two years with the Diversity Action Plan for Penn Genomics. She is particularly interested in decolonization, diversity, and inclusion in the engineering classroom, and looks forward to continuing to grow as an educator.

Artemis is a third-year Computer Science Ph.D. student, focusing on the multimodality and interpretability of artificial intelligence models. Prior to this, she undertook the Dual Degree in Artificial Intelligence at Penn, majoring in Computer and Cognitive Science as well as Philosophy. Concurrently, she also obtained her Master's in Computer Science.

During her time at Penn, Artemis served as a Teaching Assistant for five different computer science courses. In 2019, she was awarded the Penn Engineering Exceptional Service Award for her teaching contributions. 

She has also taught computer science at the Kohelet-Yeshiva Elementary School and South Woods State Prison, making computer science accessible to diverse communities.

Artemis aims to stimulate student interest in mathematics, logic, and computer science while overcoming any mental obstacles from past experiences. She is deeply committed to promoting a comprehensive, widespread literacy in the field of computer science.
https://artemisp.github.io/

Susanna is a third year PhD Student in Music Composition. They research collaborative improvisation, mixing electronic and acoustic sounds, and using feedback cycles as a musical sound source. At Penn, they have served as instructor for the Music Theory and Musicianship Fundamentals course and they have taught introductory and intermediate levels of this course at other institutions. As a teacher, they are interested in active learning techniques, project-based learning, integrating theory with application, and creating a more accessible academia, especially for neurodiverse and queer members of the learning community. Susanna grew up here in Philadelphia and received a BA in Music from the New College of Florida as well as an MM in Music Composition from the University of Oregon. In their free time, they enjoy studying Muay Thai, reading speculative fiction, and sipping various teas.

Miranda Sklaroff is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science. Her dissertation is on anti-eugenics as a political lens for understanding twentieth-century feminist movements and public policy. She has been a TA for a diverse array of classes including Ancient Political Thought and The Public Policy Process. In her classes, Miranda is politically and pedagogically committed to the notion that all students are already political theorists, whether or not they know it, as they try to make sense of the world and the contours of power that shape their lives. When she’s not teaching, she’s running reading groups, painting, or playing with her dogs.

Jeremy Steinberg is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the department of Religious Studies, studying the Hebrew Bible and Judaism in the ancient Greek and Roman world. His dissertation examines the ways that Greek-educated ancient Jewish writers reconceptualized the Bible in accordance with Greek and Roman notions about the nature and purpose of literature. Jeremy is teaching Gender, Sexuality & Religion in Fall 2023; previously, he has served as a TA for Religion & Sports; Gender, Sexuality & Religion; Jews & Judaism in Antiquity; and Religions of the West. Jeremy holds a BA in Religion from Haverford College and a post-baccalaureate certificate in Classical Languages from Penn.

Marcus is a fifth-year PhD student in Economics whose research is in applied microeconomic theory. After completing his undergraduate studies at UNSW Sydney, he first worked for an Australian investment bank before moving to Europe to take a derivatives trading role in Amsterdam. At Penn, Marcus has enjoyed teaching for game theory courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels; he is passionate about delivering stimulating classes that leverage interactive experiences to engage students. He will serve as a CTL TA trainer for the 2023 TA cohort, and is excited to further develop his teaching through the CTL fellowship.

Taylor is a second year PhD student in the Department of Chemistry. Her research focuses on post-translational modifications of tau protein, involved in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Prior to Penn, Taylor earned a BS in Chemistry and a BA in Sociology from the University of Pittsburgh. At Penn, she has been a TA for General Chemistry courses and won a departmental teaching award. She also worked for CTL as a TA Trainer, designing and leading sections of the Grading in the Sciences and Quantitative Social Sciences workshop during CTL TA Training 2023. Taylor is passionate about the interdisciplinary nature of the sciences and the humanities and finding ways to connect people and topics in the classroom.