GREAT Advisory Group

Gloria J. Ashaolu

Gloria J. Ashaolu is a doctoral candidate in History at Michigan State University. She was a Future Academic Scholars in Teaching (FAST) Fellow and serves on the Leadership Team for the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL). She is a recipient of the MSU Educator Award, the Muelder-Lowe Graduate (Teaching Assistant) Endowed Award, and the Fred Williams Graduate (Teaching) Award. She is a member of the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society. Through her commitment to research, teaching, and service, Gloria aspires to create and engage with meaningful work that helps us better understand the present through our collective history, coupled with effective, innovative, and educational instructional practices that have a transformative effect. She also enjoys exploring new places, cooking, outdoor activities, reading, and spending time with friends and family.

Contact: ashaolug@msu.edu

Hima Rawal

Dr. Hima Rawal is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Graduate Educator Advancement and Teaching (GREAT) office at the Graduate School. She earned her M.Ed. in English Education from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from Michigan State University under a Fulbright Fellowship, and PhD in Second Language Studies from Michigan State University. She was a Residential College in Arts and Humanities (RCAH) and Center for Teaching and Learning (CTLI) fellow. She was the inaugural recipient of Susan Mary Gass Outstanding Teaching Award. Her research interests are teacher professional development, trauma-informed teaching, learner and teacher emotions, and humanizing research and pedagogy in linguistically diverse classroom settings. She is serving on the Steering Committees of Future Academic Scholars in Teaching (FAST) fellowship and MSU Trauma Services and Training Network (TSTN). She also co-chairs the Mindfulness and Contemplative Pedagogy Special Interest Group at the Professional and Organizational Development Network.

Contact: rawalhim@msu.edu

Arya Gupta

Arya Gupta is a doctoral candidate at Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University. His current research interests include Distributed Systems, Graph Theory, Complexity Theory. He loves teaching Mathematics and Computer Science. With prior service for teaching assignments (as a TA) for five years, he is serving as a GTA with CSE at MSU for more than 3 years (more than 10 semesters).

Contact: atgupta@msu.edu

Seth Hunt

Seth Hunt is an instructor at the Biological Sciences Program and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Plant Biology at Michigan State University. He previously earned his M.S. in Water Science at Murray State University and worked as a preceptor with the Interdisciplinary Science Learning Laboratories at the University of Delaware. His research combines traditional aquatic ecological field work with discipline-based education research. Seth is studying the factors that influence the movement of dissolved nutrients in rivers while also working to understand how students employ systems thinking skills when reasoning with nutrient cycling models. He has served as a graduate teaching assistant for both majors and non-majors introductory biology courses as well as upper-level courses for biology majors.

Contact: huntseth@msu.edu

Tianyi (Titi) Kou-Herrema

Tianyi (Titi) Kou-Herrema is a doctoral candidate in the German Program in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures at MSU. In her doctoral research, she employs natural language processing (NLP) and text analysis to study media narratives surrounding the German national football teams. During her nine semesters as a teaching assistant, Titi has taught a range of courses, from basic to intermediate German language courses, to an honors option at James Madison College. Her dedication to teaching was recognized and awarded with the MSU-wide Excellence-in-Teaching Citation in 2022. She is currently working on the NSF-funded project, Knowledge Commons, where she applies NLP techniques to analyze a large quantity of multilingual and multidisciplinary data. Titi enjoys learning new things in her free time, from Zumba and kickboxing to a new language (Finnish!). Oh, she might also be found playing with Legos with some music playing in the background.

Contact: koutiany@msu.edu

Chase Bruggeman

Dr. Chase Bruggeman recently defended his PhD in Chemical Engineering at MSU, specializing in electrochemistry (electrochemistry is how bleach is made, and it is how blood glucose monitors work). He worked in flavor chemistry for three years before coming to MSU, and before that he studied Chemistry and German at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His long-term academic goal is to discover a way to convert solar energy into chemical energy, much like how plants grow from the energy of the sun. In his free time he enjoys reading and doing math.

Contact: bruggem7@msu.edu

Samara Chamoun

Samara Chamoun is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Mathematics at MSU, with specialization in Optimal Control Theory and Sweeping Process. An international student from Lebanon, she earned a master‘s degree in Applied and Computational Mathematics and bachelor’s degree in Pure Mathematics in Lebanon. She believes that Loving Kindness and Compassionate pedagogy and practices are the heart of teaching and being. Combining her dedication to education and professional development with a desire to humanize mathematics, she is constantly exploring how Math can benefit other fields like social sciences and educational development. Her ultimate aspiration is to unite her passion for math with her interests in human behavior. In her free time, she enjoys painting, reading, writing, and visiting new places.

Contact: chamouns@msu.edu

Saviour Kitcher

Saviour Kitcher is a doctoral student in Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education (CITE) and a Teaching Assistant in the Teacher Education Department. He graduated from the University of Ghana. His research interests focus on Project-Based Learning in social studies, Curriculum Development and Evaluation, Soccer as a means of civic engagement, Active participation, and citizenship. In his free time, he enjoys playing soccer, watching movies, reading, and doing community service.

Contact: kitchers@msu.edu

Sewwandi Abeywardana

Sewwandi Abeywardana is a doctoral candidate in chemistry. Her research interests include improving college STEM education through development of evidence-based chemistry curricula, assessment and instruction. Additionally, Sewwandi is passionate about creating structures to support faculty and graduate educators in adopting equitable and evidence-based teaching practices. She completed her undergraduate studies at the Institute of Chemistry, Sri Lanka and earned her Masters degree in organic chemistry from the California State University, Long Beach. In her free time, Sewwandi enjoys reading, listening to music, spending time with her loved ones and learning about plant-based nutrition and child development.

Contact: abeyward@msu.edu