This year our First Year Experience and Transfer Year Experience courses will be taught by 9 instructors from 9 different departments. Our instructors are committed to student learning, engagement, and sucess. Get to know them below.
We also work with a team of 6 graduate teaching assistants. Meet them here.
Revelle College | REV 1
Amy Zroka received her Ph.D. in History from UC San Diego in 2015. Her research focuses on modern German history, women’s and gender history, and the history of nursing. She has taught at the undergraduate level for over ten years. She worked as a Teaching Assistant for the Revelle Humanities Program, and for the First Year Experience Program. In addition, she taught history, honors, and science studies courses at Clarkson University. Most recently, Dr. Zroka worked for the Revelle Humanities Program as a lecturer.
John Muir College | MUIR 1
Wayne Yang’s work transgresses the line between scholarship and community, as evidenced by his involvement in urban education and community organizing. He was the co-founder of the Avenues Project, a non-profit youth development organization, and also the co-founder of East Oakland Community High School. He also worked in school system reform as part of Oakland Unified School District’s Office of School Reform. An accomplished educator, Dr. Yang has taught high school in Oakland, California for over 15 years and is a recipient of the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award.
Dr. Yang writes about decolonization and everyday epic organizing, particularly from underneath ghetto colonialism, often with his frequent collaborator, Eve Tuck. Currently, they are convening The Land Relationships Super Collective, editing the book series, Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education, and editing the journal, Critical Ethnic Studies. He is interested in the complex role of cities in global affairs: cities as sites of settler colonialism, as stages for empire, as places of resettlement and gentrification, and as always-already on Indigenous lands.
*Sometimes he writes as la paperson, an avatar that irregularly calls.
Sixth College | SXTH 1
Lakshmi Chilukuri obtained her B.S in Zoology and an M.S. in Environmental Biology from Madras University in India, and her Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology and Biochemistry from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD. Following graduation she served as an adjunct professor at UCSD from 1998, teaching Microbiology Lab, Nutrition, Biochemical Techniques, and the learning skills course Methods of Inquiry. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Division of Biology at UCSD and the Coordinator of the Microbiology teaching labs. In winter quarter she will take on the duties of Faculty Director of the First Year Experience. Her research interests cover three main areas: bringing authentic research and experiential learning to undergraduate labs through enrichment and bioremediation experiments; creating tools for enhancing interactive teaching and learning at the undergraduate level; and exploring strategies to ensure that students are successful at UCSD and prepared for their careers after graduation. Her most recent efforts include a series of videos and instructional tools for microbiology lab, participation in summer academy for transfer students, and teaching the freshmen Strategies for Success course. She has two daughters, the older is a lawyer and the younger is a mechanical engineer. She is a compulsive walker, loves hiking and backpacking, cooking and reading, and hopes to go back to painting and drawing some day (despite not being really good at either).
Earl Warren College | WARR 1
Grant Goodall is Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Linguistics Language Program. His research focuses on the way that our linguistic knowledge and general cognitive abilities interact to produce the types of syntactic structures that we find in human language. To this end, he directs the Experimental Syntax Lab on campus, where he and a team of graduate students conduct experiments on speakers of a range of languages, both in the lab and on-line. He is also interested in humans' ability to acquire language, how this ability changes over the lifespan, and what we can do to adapt to these changes when we acquire languages later in life. He did his undergraduate studies at UCLA and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and his graduate work at UCSD and MIT. Outside of work, he enjoys travel, yoga, and learning the languages of Game of Thrones.
Eleanor Roosevelt College | ERC 1
Matthew T. Herbst is an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of California San Diego where he serves as Director of the world history Making of the Modern World Program. Prof. Herbst was a founding faculty member of UC San Diego’s Global Seminars in 2008 and has since led programs in Thailand and Cambodia, Turkey, France, and England. Closer to home, Dr. Herbst leads wilderness seminars in the deserts and mountains of Southern California, working with Outback Adventures. In 2015, he was a recipient of the UCSD Distinguished Teaching Award. Attentive to the invaluable role of pre-collegiate education, Prof. Herbst serves on the Board of Directors at a public school in San Diego County and founded “Istanbul Between East and West: Crossroads of History,” a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for middle and high school teachers (2013, 2015). Dr. Herbst received his Ph.D. and M.A. in History from the University of Michigan and his BA in History, Greek, and Latin from Binghamton University.
Thurgood Marshall College | TMC 1
Dr. Leslie Carver is the Provost for Thurgood Marshall College. She is passionate about TMC's mission of promoting cultural responsiveness, social equality, and civic justice. She is also a professor in the UCSD Psychology Department and Human Development Program, as well as the DN Lab’s director. Dr. Carver’s dissertation work on infant memory was one of the first studies to directly link brain and behavior in early infancy. Her current research includes projects on infant memory, social referencing, and face processing and social development in children with autism.
Revelle College | REV 2
Amy Zroka received her Ph.D. in History from UC San Diego in 2015. Her research focuses on modern German history, women’s and gender history, and the history of nursing. She has taught at the undergraduate level for over ten years. She worked as a Teaching Assistant for the Revelle Humanities Program, and for the First Year Experience Program. In addition, she taught history, honors, and science studies courses at Clarkson University. Most recently, Dr. Zroka worked for the Revelle Humanities Program as a lecturer.
John Muir College | MUIR 2
Carrie Wastal, PhD, is the Director of the Muir College Writing Program at UC, San Diego. In her capacity as director, she has direct responsibility for training and supervising Graduate Student Teaching Assistants, developing curriculum for program courses and for program policies. Professional and faculty examples include: developing the Workshop for Putting Diversity Training into Practice, establishing the John Muir Excellence in Writing Award for Muir Writing students; developing courses examining disability, diversity, and stereotypical identities assigned to youth as it relates to social and institutional issues. At the invitation of campus undergraduate programs and organizations, she speaks to student groups about opportunities for learning in their college and at the university.
Thurgood Marshall College | TMC 2
Dr. Leslie Carver is the Provost for Thurgood Marshall College. She is passionate about TMC's mission of promoting cultural responsiveness, social equality, and civic justice. She is also a professor in the UCSD Psychology Department and Human Development Program, as well as the DN Lab’s director. Dr. Carver’s dissertation work on infant memory was one of the first studies to directly link brain and behavior in early infancy. Her current research includes projects on infant memory, social referencing, and face processing and social development in children with autism.
Earl Warren College | WARR 2
Emily Roxworthy is the Provost of Earl Warren College and has been faculty in the Department of Theatre and Dance since 2004. She is also affiliate faculty in the Department of Ethnic Studies and in the Critical Gender Studies Program. Provost Roxworthy previously served as Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Diversity & Equity with broad responsibility to promote equity, excellence, and diversity within faculty ranks. Her college appointment is in Warren, where she has served on the College's Writing Advisory Committee and Executive Committee of the Faculty. Provost Roxworthy is an active and accomplished scholar and teacher, working at the intersection of theatre history and performance studies, with particular interests in interculturalism, Asian/Asian American theatre, digital media, and role playing. She is the author of the award-winning book The Spectacle of Japanese American Trauma: Racial Performativity and World War II, as well as numerous scholarly articles on the Japanese American internment and other topics.
Eleanor Roosevelt College | ERC 2
Matthew T. Herbst is an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of California San Diego where he serves as Director of the world history Making of the Modern World Program. Prof. Herbst was a founding faculty member of UC San Diego’s Global Seminars in 2008 and has since led programs in Thailand and Cambodia, Turkey, France, and England. Closer to home, Dr. Herbst leads wilderness seminars in the deserts and mountains of Southern California, working with Outback Adventures. In 2015, he was a recipient of the UCSD Distinguished Teaching Award. Attentive to the invaluable role of pre-collegiate education, Prof. Herbst serves on the Board of Directors at a public school in San Diego County and founded “Istanbul Between East and West: Crossroads of History,” a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for middle and high school teachers (2013, 2015). Dr. Herbst received his Ph.D. and M.A. in History from the University of Michigan and his BA in History, Greek, and Latin from Binghamton University.
Sixth College | SXTH 2
Robert "Skip" Pomeroy is a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and is past Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Diversity Committee. He is active in 2 research centers: CAICE the Center for Aerosols Impact on the Chemistry of the Environment and FF21, Food and Fuel for the 21st Century. CAICE researches the impact aerosols have on climate relevant properties and in FF21 he investigates the emission of Volatile Organic Compounds, VOCs, from algae to identify when production algae crops are undergoing predation. He mentors several undergraduates in renewable fuels and biopolymers from algae and sustainable sources. He is the UC San Diego Faculty Climate Action Champion and conducts student and teacher workshops on biofuels and climate change. He teaches Instrumental Analysis and Environmental Chemistry and mentors a group of High school students from Castle Park High School in the South Bay region of San Diego.