Graduate Fellows Program

Current Graduate Fellows

Alizé Hill 
Alizé Hill is a doctoral candidate at Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. She received her B.A. in Human Development from Cornell University in 2018 and her M.S.W. in Social Work from The University of Chicago in 2020. Her current research interests include educational equity, the schooling experiences of marginalized youth, abolitionist social work, the experiences of multiracial families, and youth activism. Her dissertation combines these various interests in order to examine the process through which multiracial families navigate the school-prison nexus. Alizé is also a professional circus artist who combines circus and social work to engage in radical imagination in her creative performance pieces and Socioemotional learning (SEL) in her teaching of circus arts to youth across Chicago. 



Anna Berlekamp
Anna is a PhD Candidate in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC), specializing in Anatolian Archaeology. Her research focuses on socio-political organization, increasing territoriality, and inter- and intra-regional interaction networks during the early second millennium BCE in central Turkey. At the University of Chicago, she has served as a Writing Intern, a Teaching Assistant for NELC courses, and as the Instructor of Record for a course on the Hittite empire. As a CCTL Fellow, Anna hopes to help instructors engage and improve active learning strategies and object-based learning. 



Ava Polzin
Ava is a PhD candidate in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, working with Profs. Andrey Kravtsov and Hsiao-Wen Chen to better understand star formation and the baryon cycle in low mass, low metallicity galaxies. In addition to doing research, Ava has served as a tutor and instructor for a number of courses across the physical sciences. Most recently, she was a Graduate Teaching Fellow in the Yale University Department of Astronomy and a Lead Instructor for the Yale Young Global Scholars Program. As a CCTL Fellow, Ava is excited to help foster a culture of thoughtful pedagogy at UChicago. 



Caitlin Wong Hickernell 
Caitlin is a PhD candidate in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics program. She works in Dr. Allan Drummond’s lab, researching how budding yeast are able to survive and respond to heat stress. She is a recipient of the NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) F31 via the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Caitlin has had extensive experience as a TA for biology courses, ranging from non-major introductory biology classes to specialized, advanced biochemistry courses. As a CCT fellow, she will consider how to effectively teach biology in a way that captures the complex beauty of nature, moving away from the field’s historical reliance on rote memorization. Caitlin is also interested in the intersection of STEM pedagogy with science communication to the public, with the hope that effective STEM instruction can have benefits beyond the immediate classroom.



Chiza Mwinde 
Chiza is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geophysical Sciences. She studies Earth’s climate in the past using variations of boron and calcium ancient salt deposits. She enjoys sharing her passion for Earth science and has served as a TA and lecturer for undergraduate courses in the geophysical sciences department. Along with fellow lab members, she volunteers at UChicago’s Collegiate Scholars Program, where they conduct environmental science workshops for high school students. Chiza looks forward to collaborating with other CCTL fellows and helping instructors integrate active learning strategies and effective assessment methods in their teaching. 



Darren Kusar
Darren is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, focusing on early modern Italian literature. His research interests include early modern poetry, opera, voice studies, Renaissance demonology, phenomenology, and wonder tales. In his dissertation, Image, Voice, Text: Staging the Diabolical in Early Modern Italian Opera, he examines the production and reception of visually and aurally staged diabolical characters in a culture preoccupied with spiritual threats. As an instructor, Darren has taught several Italian language courses, an advanced course on academic writing, and a self-designed course on early modern epic and opera. He has also been a CA in both the Italian and Music departments. 



Elaine Kushkowski 
Elaine is a PhD Candidate in the Committee on Development, Regeneration, and Stem Cell Biology studying how cell types are specified during early development in vertebrates. Her research focuses on the early position, movements, and signaling environments that drive specification of a cell type called the neural crest. She has taught a variety of undergraduate biology courses and redesigned the Biological Sciences Division Teaching Assistant Training Course. In 2023, she received the Wayne C. Booth Prize for Excellence in Teaching for her work with undergraduates in the College. As Lead Fellow, Elaine strives to mentor other Fellows and help graduate students across the university become confident, effective, and reflective educators. 



Ian Bongalonta 
Ian Bongalonta is a second year PhD student in the Department of Chemistry. He conducts research in large-scale quantum mechanics, reactive molecular dynamics, and their applications to biophysical systems. He has served as a teaching assistant for the Honors General Chemistry course sequence and is the recipient of the 2022 Wayne C. Booth Graduate Student Prize for Excellence in Teaching. In addition to teaching undergraduate students, Ian has also designed and taught a course in waves and electromagnetism for high school students at the University of Chicago's Collegiate Scholars Program. As a CCT fellow, he hopes to systematically improve graduate teaching and student life in the physical sciences through collective resource management and nourishment of pedagogical methods.



Irma Avdic 
Irma is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Chemistry. In her research, she develops computational techniques that will utilize noisy quantum computers as new-generation quantum sensors. She was a teaching assistant (TA) for the Introductory General Chemistry course sequence and received the 2022 Nathan Sugarman Teaching Award in General Chemistry. Currently, she is a Collaborative Learning in Chemistry TA. Irma also developed and implemented a quantum computing workshop for the Hyde Park Academy High School students in the fall of 2022. As a CCTL Fellow, she aims to contribute to the expansion of collaborative learning programs across different disciplines by creating a comprehensive collaborative learning TA guidebook on establishing a connection between the parent course and the collaborative learning courses.  



Miah Turke 
Miah is a PhD candidate in the Chemistry Department. For her doctoral work, she studies the interactions of Parkinson’s Disease-associated protein, alpha-synuclein, with lipid membranes with the aim of a better understanding of the protein’s function. She has 6 years of teaching experience, from leading discussion sessions as an undergraduate at Michigan State University to TAing for Honors General Chemistry and serving as a Senior TA for General Chemistry here at UChicago. On the weekends Miah continues to cultivate her instructional expertise outside of academics at an introductory bird-watching group that she founded. As a CCTL fellow, Miah looks forward to talking pedagogy with her peers in different fields and helping train the next generation of teachers. 



Natalie Farrell 
Natalie Farrell is a PhD candidate in Music History/Theory at the University of Chicago. She has been published in Music and Letters, The Journal of Popular Music Studies, and The Flutist Quarterly. Her research on neoliberalism and musicians’s unions has been funded by grants from the Mellon Foundation and the Eastman School of Music's Paul R. Judy Center for Innovation and Research. In her free time, she likes to knit and spend time with her dog (who is named after Leonard Bernstein). As a CCT fellow, Natalie is looking forward to helping instructors cultivate trauma-informed pedagogical tools for the Humanities.



Phillip Lo 
Phillip is a PhD student in Computational and Applied Mathematics. His research includes deep learning for astrophysics and biology, as well as statistical methods for microscopy. He has served as instructor of record for introductory calculus courses, as well as a summer high school enrichment course on data science. As a CCTL fellow, Phillip is interested in helping mathematics instructors incorporate 3D visualization software into their teaching. 



Samantha Usman