Graduate Teaching Consultant Profiles

Graduate Teaching Consultants 2022-2023

ANNA KOGLER

Anna Kogler is a PhD candidate in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and a minor in Arabic. Anna’s research focuses on designing and evaluating processes that extract valuable products from wastewaters. Anna learned to love teaching as a tutor at her high school and has since TAed multiple science, engineering, and language classes for undergraduate and graduate students at WashU and Stanford. She also mentors undergraduate researchers in her lab. Outside of school, Anna enjoys triathlons, camping, and spending time with her cat.

TARANEE CAO (Graduate Teaching Consultant Coordinator)

Taranee Cao is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. Growing up in Mainland China, she received a B.A. degree in Japanese Studies from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Before coming to Stanford, she did an M.A. in East Asian Studies in University of Pittsburgh. She has four quarters of TA experience teaching second-year Japanese Language classes, and she also taught intermediate Japanese conversation class in 2019 Fall. Enthusiastic in teaching, she is thrilled to join CTL teaching consultant team, ready to learn from other fabulous consultants and to share her understandings about teaching. Her current research focuses on Japanese youth language, and her previous projects cover themes such as language acquisition, Japanese onomatopoeia, honorific language, and pragmatics. Outside research, she enjoys practicing the piano, Aikido (Japanese martial arts), golf, and playing bridge games.

CHANHEE HEO

Chanhee Heo is a PhD candidate in Religious Studies with a minor in the Department of History. Her research interests include twentieth-century American religious history in a global context with a focus on race and immigration. She hopes to continue her work as a religious historian while cultivating diverse and inclusive learning and research environments. At Stanford, Chanhee has been a teaching assistant (TA) and course development assistant (CDA) for various undergraduate courses such as Race and Religion in America, The Good Death, Asian American Religions, and Religion around the Globe. 

RITA KAMANI-RENEDO

Rita Kamani-Renedo is a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Education, specializing in Race, Inequality, and Language in Education and Curriculum and Teacher Education. Prior to starting her PhD, she was a high school educator in New York City for ten years and a teacher educator in the Bilingual Education program at Hunter College, CUNY. She worked as a high school history, English, and “English as a New Language” teacher at a public high school for newcomer immigrant and refugee students. Her research examines critical pedagogies with transnational, multilingual, and immigrant youth. 

SHAMEEKA "SMEEK" WILSON

Shameeka "Smeek" Wilson is a second-year doctoral student in the Race, Inequality, and Language (RILE) program in the Graduate School of Education (GSE). She received her B.S. in Professions in Deafness: K-12 Deaf and hard of hearing Teacher Licensure and an M.Ed in Teacher Education - Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). Additionally, she holds teaching certifications in Deaf education, special education, and TESOL and taught in K-12 contexts in the South. Her research explores Black teacher recruitment. She is interested in the lived experiences of Black women in K-12 contexts, specifically, in North Carolina. Shameeka's research is supported by the Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education (EDGE) fellowship and the Center for Ethics in Society graduate fellowship.

AMY LYNNE JOHNSON 

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology and have worked as a Teaching Assistant at Stanford University and Wellesley College, where I earned my BA in Sociology and Spanish. My approach to teaching stems from a determination to make what are often considered inaccessible concepts approachable for all students. Most often, I teach introductory statistics, where my pedagogy focuses on reducing math anxiety and building students’ confidence with both quantitative and coding skills. More broadly, my teaching philosophy is that every student should feel empowered to succeed and be given the tools to do so. I strive to use my teaching to build an inclusive learning environment for all students, to meet students where they are, and to combat the imposter syndrome that’s all too ubiquitous at Stanford. Outside the classroom, I extend my teaching practices to my work as a consultant with the library’s Social Science Data and Software (SSDS) program, where I help students, post-docs, faculty, and staff use statistical software in their own research. In my free time, I enjoy spending time with family and friends, drinking way too much coffee, and soaking up the California sunshine.

CALLAN MONETTE

Callan Monette is a PhD candidate in the Bioengineering department. She is from Virginia, where she attended the College of William & Mary and earned her BS in Computational & Applied Mathematics and Statistics (with a focus in mathematical biology). Now, her PhD research focuses on the development of 3D tissue engineered models for high-throughput cancer drug discovery. Callan has 4 years of TA and teaching experience, having TA-ed a diverse set of lab, lecture, and seminar-style courses in biology, mathematics, and engineering. She is passionate about building inclusive communities within STEM fields, and believes that equitable teaching, mentorship and communication practices are critical to any STEM career. At Stanford, with the support of the CTL’s Leadership in Inclusive Teaching (LIT) Fellowship, Callan co-developed and co-instructed a new course, BIOE 296: Promoting Effective and Equitable Teaching in Bioengineering, which provides graduate students with the opportunity to learn and practice inclusive teaching and communication strategies.

MICHELLE MING-HSUAN PANG

Michelle Pang is a PhD candidate in the Biology Program and Neurobiology Department. She has experience TAing for both introductory and upper-division biology courses, as well as for the Graduate Course Design Institute, and she has received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the Biology Department. As an instructor and teaching consultant, Michelle has grown to be most excited about structuring learning environments that are engaging and accessible to all students. In the lab, she is studying visual processing in the fruit fly as a model for understanding how cell type diversity impacts neural circuit function.

JEM JEBBIA (Graduate Teaching Consultant Coordinator)

jem Jebbia is a PhD Candidate in Religious Studies at Stanford University. In her studies, jem focuses on race and immigration, interfaith communities, and material religion in California. Her dissertation focuses on community building across religious and racial lines in contemporary California. Other projects include an ethnographic study of the #TacoTrucksatEveryMosque Movement, the religious history of the "Happiest Place on Earth," and a pop-up exhibit called Golden State Sacred, depicting the religious history of California. At Stanford, jem has taught courses on early Christianity, religion and material culture, social engagement and justice, and is currently developing a course on religion in contemporary California. In her previous position, jem served as a dialogue facilitator and workshop developer for interfaith engagement and student leadership.

GRACE HUCKINS

Grace Huckins is a Ph.D. candidate in Stanford's Neurosciences Program. Their research centers on questions about the ethical obligations of neuroscientific research. Using the machinery of the philosophy of science, they are working to understand how neuroscience can build better and more beneficial explanations of mental illness, despite the enormous technical challenges that stand in the way of comprehending the brain. An avid teacher, they have TAed for various neuroscience courses at Stanford, and for the past few summers, they designed and taught a course entitled “Medicine and the Brain” at Oxbridge Academic Programs. They are particularly interested in interdisciplinary courses that place science in its humanistic and social context. Outside of research and teaching, they write about science and society as a freelance journalist.

XU LU

Xu Lu is a PhD student in finance at the Stanford GSB. Her works examine macro finance challenges with new quantity-based mechanisms, using micro data on demand/supply such as land sales, portfolio holdings and household spendings. As a student, she often found her best research designs from conversations with fellow students. Because of this personal experience, as an instructor, she is particularly interested in creating a collaborative learning environment. Xu has a diverse background in education. She has been a volunteer teacher for high schoolers in rural China and taught both college and graduate students as a teaching assistant. She finds it incredibly rewarding to help students learn new concepts and is always amazed by how much she learns from interactions with students who worked as practitioners.

MARIANNA ZHANG (Graduate Teaching Consultant Coordinator)

Marianna Zhang is a third-year PhD student in Psychology, working in the developmental psychology area. Her research focuses on how children learn about categories, particularly social categories such as gender and race, and the role that language plays in that process. Marianna is particularly interested in fostering diverse and inclusive learning environments, and was a 2019-20 Teaching Fellow in the Psych One Program. Prior to Stanford, she graduated from the University of Chicago in 2018 with a degree in psychology. She is originally from New York and enjoys caving and bargain-hunting.