William Rando is Associate Dean in the College and Director of the Chicago Center for Teaching at the University of Chicago. Rando started his professional career teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences at Northeastern University in Boston. For the past 30 years, he has taught undergraduate courses, developed centers for teaching and learning, and served in leadership positions in higher education and in organizations that advance teaching. He was the first full-time director of the Academy for Art of Teaching at Florida International University in Miami, FL, and he was the Founding Director of the Yale Teaching Center at Yale University, where he worked and taught for fifteen years prior to coming to Chicago. His research and writing covers a wide range of areas, including: medical education, qualitative research methods, lecturing, group dynamics, teaching with images, and institutional strategies for faculty and TA development. His publications include: "How Practice is Shaped by Implicit Theories"; "Recommendations for Teaching Psychology"; "Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of an Innovative Anatomy Course"; and "Learning from Students: Case Studies in Mid-Semester Feedback". Rando consults with colleges and universities throughout the country and around the world. He holds a B.A. in English from Boston College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University.
Joseph Lampert, PhD
Director, Initiatives in the Humanities
and Social Sciences & Senior Lecturer in the College/ Gates-Blake 132
Joe oversees a range of programming aimed at developing the pedagogy of all teachers from across the disciplines at the University, with a special focus on initiatives in the social sciences and humanities. Among other projects, he coordinates and teaches the CCT graduate course on teaching and learning (CCTE 50000: Course Design and College Teaching), and works on several initiatives related to teaching and learning in the Core curriculum. He also regularly teaches Classics of Social and Political Thought. Prior to coming to UChicago, Joe was Assistant Professor of Political Science at Portland State University, where his teaching was honored with an Outstanding Teaching Award, and was Associate Director at the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching at Northwestern. Joe has a PhD in Political Science from Yale, where he was also a Fellow and Program Coordinator at the McDougal Graduate Teaching Center.
Angelika (Kiki) Zissimopoulos, PhD
Director for Initiatives in STEM Teaching and Learning/ Wieboldt 316
Kiki directs efforts that support STEM teaching and learning at the University of Chicago. She collaborates regularly with STEM departments and divisions to develop and implement programming including year-long trainings for graduate student instructors, professional development workshops for faculty, and classroom observations and mentor training across all levels. She collaborates and contributes regularly to programming offered through myCHOICE and the BSD Postdoctoral Association and consults on teaching and learning related aspects of select core courses. Kiki also teaches an undergraduate course through the Institute for Molecular Engineering. Prior to joining the Chicago Center for Teaching in 2015, Kiki was an instructional developer at Purdue University’s Center for Instructional Excellence where her work focused on faculty and graduate student development, course redesign, and educational research. Her research has included teamwork within a classroom setting and large-scale assessment of student learning. Kiki earned a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University, where she served as a graduate student mentor at the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching and taught in the College of Engineering.
Cheryl R. Richardson, PhD
Assistant Director for Inclusive Teaching/ Wieboldt 314
Cheryl collaborates with faculty, graduate students, and administrators to promote, develop, and practice inclusive teaching.
Cheryl earned her PhD in education from Stanford University and has worked in faculty development since 2000. She recently served as the Associate Director for the Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning at the University of Delaware, where she partnered with faculty, graduate students, and administrators to adopt practices that improve student learning. While she assisted with various aspects of teaching, she developed specific expertise in aspects related to inclusion and diversity.
Cheryl’s research, teaching, and service has focused on the history of education in the US and Africa, professionalism and teaching, and diversity and learning.
Julie Hanlon
Assistant Director, Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Programs/ Gates-Blake 101A
Julie is in the final stages of completing a joint PhD in Anthropology and South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. Her research background is interdisciplinary, and includes training in archaeology, epigraphy, geo-spatial and statistical analysis, and Tamil language and literature. She has spent much of her graduate career teaching as a writing intern in the UChicago Humanities Core and as a lecturer in the Power, Identity, and Resistance sequence of the Social Sciences Core. She has designed and taught courses on Indian archaeology, ancient history, anthropology, and classical Tamil literature at University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She also served as a lecturer in UChicago’s study abroad program in India in 2016 and was awarded the Karen Dinal Memorial Award for excellence as a teacher of writing in 2013.
Sydney holds an M.Ed from the Loyola University Chicago Higher Education program. She previously worked in Loyola's Center for Tutoring and Academic Excellence and Student Diversity and Multicultural Affairs Office, where she instructed courses using contemplative pedagogy and implemented multicultural programming for the success of underrepresented college students. Her burgeoning research interests include college students' spiritual identity development, Black women in Leadership in Higher Education, and intersectional approaches to student academic support. Sydney earned a bachelor's degree in Athletic Training from Texas State University in 2016.
Thomas is a Theoretical Chemistry Ph.D. student in the Voth group. He studies coarse-grained methods for making molecular models. Thomas has previously been part of the Science Literacy Program at the University of Oregon where he helped teach science courses for non-science majors by employing active learning techniques. At the University of Chicago, Thomas has been a teaching assistant for both comprehensive general chemistry and honors general chemistry.
