2017-18
Anne Boemler
Anne is a 5th-year PhD candidate in the English Department studying community formation through Renaissance devotional verse. Her research interests include the Reformation, the history of the book, prosody, and translation theory. She has been a TA at Northwestern for a variety of courses, including Intro to Shakespeare and British Literary Traditions, and won the English Department Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award for her individually taught course, "What Can Fictions Do?" She participated in the Searle Center's Teaching Certificate Program in 2016-17, and is especially interested in developing tools for writing instruction in discipline-specific classrooms.
Matthew Brauer
Matthew is a 6th-year PhD candidate in French and Francophone Studies. He studies Maghrebi literature from the late nineteenth century to the present, seeking out comparative contexts for reading that arise as literature circulates in the world and interacts with non-literary discourses. He is completing a dissertation about novels that reimagine the history and politics of the Maghreb in ways that complicate any sense of a text's belonging to a particular place or time. Prior to coming to Northwestern, he had worked as a freelance French language tutor and an English teaching assistant in two high schools in France. As a teacher of language and literature, he uses the encounter with a new language and its literature as a means to help students reflect critically on language in general and its particular sociohistorical roles, both in oral communication and in writing.
Joel Harrison
Joel is a 6th-year PhD candidate in Religious Studies whose dissertation examines the relationship among theology, philosophy of history, and social theory in the work of Ernst Troeltsch, a German theologian writing at the turn of the 20th century. His research interests include German philosophy and theology, 19th and 20th century social theory, and theories and methods in religious studies. Joel has TA'd six quarters at NU, been a visiting lecturer in the Catholic Studies program at UIC, and taught college composition at the University of Northern Colorado and community colleges in Colorado. His teaching interests in religious studies center on reconstructing the theories and methods "canon" to include colonized and marginalized voices and the blurring of the distinction drawn between "insiders" and "outsiders" as valid scholarly contributors in religious studies.
Angela Leone
Angela is a 6th-year PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Public Cultures whose dissertation is centered on assemblage rhetorics and human/animal/machine interaction in the United States; research interests include posthumanities, animal studies, and US consumer culture. They have experience as an Instructor of Public Speaking at Northwestern, and as a TA for courses in the Rhetoric, Media, Technology, and Society, and Masters in Creative Leadership Enterprises programs. Angela's teaching practices are driven by a commitment to inclusive classrooms and civic engagement, and take a particular interest in media-and-technology-focused approaches to active learning.
Carmen Lin
Carmen is a 6th-year PhD candidate in the Interdepartmental Neuroscience (NUIN) program. Her research focuses on learning and aging-related neuronal changes in the entorhinal cortex. She participated in the Searle Center’s Teaching Certificate Program in 2016-17. As a graduate student, she has served not only as a TA, but also as a study group facilitator for the Collaborative Learning and Integrated Mentoring in the Biosciences (CLIMB) program. She is also a member of Northwestern’s Brain Awareness Outreach program, where she has given lectures and demonstrations on the brain and behavior.
Christina LoTempio
Christina is a 5th-year doctoral candidate in Political Science, with research interests in political theory, critical theory, and feminist theory. Her dissertation focuses on feminist and post-fascist critiques of capitalism. Christina’s interest in teaching and learning stems from her belief that political science is a way to understand our world, and political science classes should, among other things, provoke students to think about the type of political actors they wish to be in that world. Her commitment to providing students with this opportunity materializes through her interest in pursuing pedagogical reflection as well as continual dialogue and research on the subject of teaching and learning. She completed the Searle Center’s Teaching Certificate Program in June 2017 and currently serves as the chair of the Political Science Department Teaching Committee.
Jordan Nelson
Jordan is a 4th-year PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University. He studies the interaction of molecules with light and magnetic fields. As a teaching assistant in lab classes, he is interested in kinesthetic modes of learning, peer-led learning, and teach with new technologies. He has done preliminary research in General Chemistry Lab lectures on the formulation of clicker (audience response) questions towards deeper learning. This academic year, he is attempting to implement a project to help teaching assistants focus on more effectively teaching laboratory techniques to students.
Grace Kessler Overbeke
Grace Kessler Overbeke is a 5th-year doctoral candidate in the Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama. Her dissertation looks at the life and work of Jean Carroll, the first Jewish female standup comedian. At Northwestern, her teaching experience includes working as a TA for Theatre 140-1: Theatre in Context and an instructor for Theatre 140-2: Introduction to Theatre History, Literature and Criticism. She is currently developing and teaching Theatre 244/Jewish Studies 396: Comics and Actors--American Jews on Stage. She participated in the Searle Center's Teaching Certificate Program, and is interested in developing strategies to bring the learning styles of a rehearsal studio into the classroom.
Miriam Piilonen
Lee Robison
Laura Shanahan
Leigh Soares
