Five engineering professors have been named Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows by the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. They join 12 other faculty members in the 2018-2019 class of fellows, the largest class since the program’s inception in 2010.
They are assistant professors Leon Bellan, mechanical engineering; Uttam Ghosh, computer science; Taylor Johnson, computer engineering; Kenny Tao, biomedical engineering; and associate professor Joshua Caldwell, mechanical engineering.
The Center for Teaching awards yearlong fellowships to faculty to enhance their teaching skills and become active members of the campus teaching community.
The Junior Faculty Teaching Fellowship provides a structured faculty development experience and includes consultations, course design seminar, peer education and senior faculty mentorship. The program is open to all full-time junior faculty who have been at Vanderbilt between one and six years.
“The opportunity to interact with students is one of the primary reasons I moved to Vanderbilt,” Tao said. “I’ve taught a couple of undergraduate classes and a graduate elective in the last two years and am getting comfortable enough in front of a classroom to start experimenting with new pedagogical approaches.”
Participants develop an understanding of best teaching practices across disciplines, learn to balance and integrate teaching and research, develop and improve their materials for review and tenure process, and build a collaborative culture of teaching at Vanderbilt.
Fellows participate in a community of other teachers that include past Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows, senior faculty mentors and center senior staff. They also receive $2,000 in research funds that may be used to enrich their teaching.
Ten engineering faculty members have received teaching fellowships.
2017-2018
Brett Byram, BME
Shihong Lin, CEE
2015-2016
Ravindra Duddu, CEE
2014-2015
Pietro Valdastri, ME
2013-2014
William Grissom, BME
2012-2013
Bennett Landman, EECS
Jason Valentine, ME
Yaqiong Xu, EECS
2011-2012
Jon Edd, ME
2010-2011
Haoxiang Luo, ME