The Project for Interdisciplinary Pedagogy (PIP) provides an opportunity for a diverse cohort of 4-6 University of Washington doctoral students to develop their teaching skills in the context of an integrative interdisciplinary program that spans the arts and sciences. Project fellows work closely with faculty mentors in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences program and create teaching portfolios that include evidence of their hands-on experience with theories and practices of interdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary pedagogy.
PIP Fellows for 2009-2010:
IAS is happy to announce that six UW doctoral students have been selected from a highly-competitive pool and will be teaching in 2009-2010 as fellows in the fourth year of the Project for Interdisciplinary Pedagogy (PIP). Tim Jones, a member of the third cohort of PIP fellows from 2008-09, will serve as a second year mentor for 2009-10.
Kristin Gustafson (mentored by Constantin Behler): Kristin Gustafson is a doctoral candidate in Communication interested in media history, alternative and ethnic media, political communication, and social movements and organizations. Her research and teaching interests are informed by and emerged from years of work in Minnesota's mainstream and alternative media. As an instructor, she strives to link clear learning goals with experiences that engage students beyond the classroom.
Courses to be taught in 2009-2010: BIS 204: Introduction to Journalism (autumn); BIS 313: Issues in Media Studies: Alternative U.S. Media (winter); BIS 204: Introduction to Journalism (spring).
Tim Jones (second year PIP mentor): Tim Jones is a doctoral candidate in Political Science where he studies comparative politics and international relations, with an interdisciplinary concentration in political communication. He has taught courses in political science, communication and law, both at UWS and Bellevue Community College. For the past two years, he has worked with a group of faculty, graduate students and community members to develop a curriculum on the US economy and other developed world economies and their connections (or disconnections) with quality of life, sustainability and social justice.
Course to be taught in 2009-10: BIS 293A: Special Topics: Critical Media Literacy (autumn); BIS 330: Democratic Capitalism in the United States (winter); BIS 344: International Relations (spring).
Sydney Lewis (mentored by Kari Lerum): Sydney Lewis is a doctoral candidate in English. She has an MA in History of Consciousness from UC Santa Cruz. Her research explores a broad variety of texts (written texts, art, film, music, bodies, performance, institutions) to interpret how black female sexualities have been cast, and could be re-conceptualized. Her teaching has earned high praise for her ability to help students question texts and the production and reproduction of power relationships and her social justice pedagogy.
Courses to be taught in 2009-2010: BIS 351: Topics in American Culture: Whiteness and its Discontents (autumn); BIS 206: Engaging Literary Arts (winter); BIS 322: Topics in Performance Studies: Burlesque (spring).
Trang X. Ta (mentored by Martha Groom): Trang Ta is a doctoral student in Anthropology with research interests in medical anthropology, science and technology studies, public health, cultural studies, and China. Her doctoral research examines how the expansion of market rationalities is exacerbating health disparities in contemporary China. Ta has taught courses on comparative systems of healing and disciplinary technologies of the body and self-making.
Courses to be taught in 2009-2010: BIS 396: Topics in Sustainability: Food Ideologies (autumn); BIS 411: Biotechnology and Society (winter); BIS 402: Modern China (spring).
Amoshaun Toft (mentored by Susan Harewood): Amoshaun Toft is a doctoral candidate in Communications. He is a media activist with experience in community radio, independent media, and radio journalism. He has produced radio stories for nationally syndicated programs, as well as local community radio stations. His doctoral research explores the role of communication structures in democratic institutions. He hopes to combine his experience in independent media with his background in political science to research how new communication models can facilitate democratic change.
Courses to be taught in 2009-2010: BIS 445: Meanings and Realities of Inequality (autumn); BIS 3XX: Media Production Workshop: Social Documentation and Community Voice (winter); BIS 445: Meanings and Realities of Inequality (spring).
Bryan White (mentored by Marc Servetnick): Bryan White is a doctoral candidate in Neurobiology, examining the response of neural stem cells to traumatic brain injury. In addition to studying the signal transduction pathways active in neural stem cells, he is very interested in the teaching of neuroscience to all ages. Through the design of his courses, he strives to give biology an authentic context to engage his students.
Courses to be taught in 2009-2010: The Science and Ethics of Stem Cells (winter); BES 220: Introductory Biology (spring)
PIP Fellows 2008-2009
Tami Blumenfield (mentored by Diane Gillespie): Tami Blumenfield is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at UWS where she studies minority education in China, and the role of development in education. She has wide experience in community media, as well as collaborative and participatory research methods. She has been teaching a variety of courses at UWS, including many with community-based learning components.
Areas of teaching interest: Visual studies, Indigenous Media, Comparative Family Systems, China, Anthropology, Education
Shauna Carlisle (second year PIP Mentor): Shauna Carlisle is a doctoral student in the UW School of Social Work. Her teaching interests address a wide range of issues related to public policy, demography and epidemiology of health, research methods, and inequality. Her research focuses on health disparities among black Caribbean populations in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean Islands. She has held a research fellowship with the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology. In 2005, she was mentored by IAS faculty member Nives Dolsak as part of a highly-successful teaching practicum in the MAPS program. She is participating in PIP as a second year mentor.
Areas of Interest: Health Disparities; Social and Health Policy; Immigration and Migration; Social Demography; Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality.
Caren Crandell (mentored by Bill Seaburg): Caren Crandell is a doctoral candidate in Forest Resources at UWS. She has extensive experience in wetland ecology, ethnobotany, and ecological and cultural restoration. A former middle school teacher, she has offered courses in diverse settings, including online and hybrid formats, including service learning components. She has experience working for federal and state agencies, and has been a part of the UW-wide Restoration Ecology Network.
Areas of teaching interest: Wetland Ecology, Culture and Ecology, Restoration Ecology, Ethnobotany, Environmental Policy
Erica Gunn: Erica's primary research focus is in crystallography; she likes to say that she works with misbehaved crystals. Rather than doing standard crystal growth experiments that create crystals with nice, regular faces, I work in systems that are far from equilibrium, which leads to complex pattern formation. The similarity of these patterns across a wide range of materials suggests that there are basic physical parameters that relate their non-equilibrium dynamics. My graduate research project is based on finding the conditions that favor this kind of growth, and learning to control pattern formation in such systems.
Areas of academic interest: Polymer nanocomposites for use in heat resistant plastics, synthesized organometallic complexes for use in organic light-emitting diodes, and the growth of crystals in kidney stone formation.
Tim Jones (mentored by Colin Danby): Tim Jones is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at UWS where he studies comparative politics and international relations, with an interdisciplinary concentration in political communication. He has taught courses in political science, communication and law, both at UWS and Bellevue Community College. For the past year, he has worked with a group of faculty, graduate students and community members to develop a curriculum on the US economy and other developed world economies and their connections (or disconnections) with quality of life, sustainability and social justice.
Areas of teaching interest: International Relations, Political Communication, Developed World Economies, US Media and Politics, US Political Institutions.
Fernanda Oyarzun (mentored by Cinnamon Hillyard): Fernanda Oyarzun is a doctoral candidate in Biology at UWS where she is pursuing a dual career as a biologist and a visual artist. Her dissertation research assesses the costs and benefits of different reproductive systems in a polychaete worm. With others in the Biology department, she was recently awarded a UW-wide distinguished teaching award for developing and teaching the course "Learning how to learn in science" that seeks to retain minorities in introductory biology courses. She also won the distinguished graduate teaching award in the Biology department in 2006.
Areas of teaching interest: Biology: Visual Art; Ecology; Visual representations of data; Supporting minorities in the sciences
Samuel Yum (mentored by Linda Watts): Samuel Yum is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at UWS. He is interested in national identity formation in diasporic communities, working with Korean Americans. He has extensive experience with museums and new media technology and production. His courses emphasize the use of creative collaborations to investigate issues in cultural anthropology.
Areas of teaching interest: Cultural Anthropology, Nation, Culture and Identity; Visual Media; New Media Production
Previous PIP Fellows
2007-2008
Shauna Carlisle (Department of Social Work; mentored by Elizabeth Thomas)
Amy Lambert (Department of Forest Resources; mentored by Linda Watts)
Kevin Ramsey (Department of Geography; mentored by Ron Krabill)
Rebeca Rivera (Department of Environmental Anthropology; mentored by Warren Gold)
Stephanie Scopelitis (Department of Educational Psychology; mentored by Jeanne Heuving)
2006-2007
Melanie Kill (Department of English; mentored by Gray Kochhar-Lindgren)
Georgia Roberts (Department of English; mentored by Ron Krabill)
Jeanette Sanchez (Department of Theater History and Criticism; mentored by Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren)
Matthew Sneddon (Department of History; mentored by Linda Watts)
Sarah Starkweather (Department of Geography; mentored by Colin Danby)
Want more information?
If you have questions about PIP, contact the 2008-2009 Co-Directors: Bruce Burgett (burgett@u.washington.edu), Martha Groom (groom@u.washington.edu), or David Goldstein (DGoldstein@uwb.edu).
Generous support for the Project for Interdisciplinary Pedagogy has been provided by the UW Graduate School Fund for Excellence and Innovation, the UW Bothell Office of Academic Affairs, the UW Bothell Teaching and Learning Center, and the IAS program.