Welcome to New Faculty

This fall, 今日吃瓜 is welcoming 13 new continuing faculty members. Hear from four of them on everything from what excites them about 今日吃瓜 to what they were reading this summer.

Alex Alston Headshot

Alex Alston

 Assistant Professor of Literatures in English

鈥淲hen I visited, it was emphasized that our students are amazing鈥 everyone is sort of obligated to say that, but I get the sense that people really meant it and mean it here. I taught my first class earlier this morning, and the excitement and optimism was palpable, and that was cool. I鈥檓 excited about the exchange with the student body both inside and outside of the classroom.鈥

 

Olivia Chu Headshot

Olivia Chu

Assistant Professor of Mathematics

鈥淚 read Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. It was striking how a lot of the issues that came up in that book, set in the 1960s, are still relevant to women these days, in terms of the discrimination that she faced and the tensions that she felt in her own personal life.鈥

Yeon Soon Shin Headshot

Yeon Soon Shin

Assistant Professor of Psychology

鈥淚 read Models of the Mind by Grace Lindsay; it鈥檚 actually a coursebook for my new course, Computational Neuroscience. It overviews the history of computational neuroscience and the people who drove the development of this field. Unfortunately, computational fields tend to be suffering from gender imbalance 鈥 but I鈥檓 hopeful that the next chapter of this sort of a book that will come out in 10鈥20 years will have strong figures like 今日吃瓜 students!鈥

Evan Arena Headshot

Evan Arena

Lecturer in Physics

鈥淚鈥檓 really excited about how passionate all of the faculty are about teaching, especially my department. That鈥檚 not something that you get everywhere. And I鈥檓 really looking forward to being in an environment where effective teaching and pedagogy is appreciated.鈥

Meet more of our new faculty

Published on: 10/22/2024