Obianuju Aliche
Health Communications and Technology-Mediated Communications,
College of Communication & Information
Obianuju Aliche is a Communications Consultant and a third-year Ph.D. student, majoring in health communications and technology-mediated communications at the FSU College of Communication & Information. Prior to her move to Tallahassee, Florida to attend FSU, she was a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Baze University, Nigeria. As a communications consultant, Aliche has functioned in several capacities, notably strategic communications development programs, branding and communication campaigns, through which she has represented the following companies/organizations: The States of Bauchi and Abia, Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency International (NEITI), Facility For Oil Sector Transformation (FORSTER), Nigeria Primary Healthcare, Nigeria National Bureau of Statistics, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and African Business Roundtable, and Horizon International Academy. Other than academics, Aliche has a passionate interest in women’s wellness, as she is a director of Dorcas International Outreach, an NGO that helps disadvantaged women access healthcare in Nigeria. She also serves as a secretary of the Sanctuary Keepers; a voluntary unit of her church dedicated to providing support for women and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Other past volunteer activities include working as an office assistant with Americare Nursing Services, Temple, Texas. Her duties spanned screening all communications, liaising with patients and nurses, managing the director of nursing’s schedules, and coordinating all nurses’ schedules. Aliche’s research interests are health communication, gender and women’s health, development communication, ehealth, and computer-mediated intervention.
Elizabeth M. Bennett
Media/Communication Studies,
College of Communication and Information
Elizabeth Bennett is an educator who enjoys analyzing and communicating about spiritual ideas. Whether it be getting to know God by communicating with him through prayer, or by getting to know others by listening to their stories, she enjoys connecting with others through open communication. She received her B.S. degree from FSU in Political Science in 2001. Elizabeth is a 2nd year master’s student in the School of Communication working on her degree in Media Communication Studies. She has been a Teaching Assistant in the School of Communication for Public Speaking in the 21st Century and Online Communication and Presence. Previous teaching experience also includes 13 years of working as a high school educator in Calhoun County, Florida. Through her teaching experience Elizabeth has learned that her best years have been when she was organized, prepared, loving, caring and demonstrated good character skills. She views all of her students, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, culture or gender, as having a desire to be understood, taught how to become better people, and loved unconditionally.
Nicholas Bower
Physics,
College of arts and Science
Nicholas Bower is a 2nd year PhD student in the physics department. He holds a BS in Astrophysics from Brown University and an MS in physics from Carnegie Mellon. Prior to coming to FSU, he taught at the Madeira School: a private, all girls boarding school outside of DC, and taught math to inmates at the Rhode Island Maximum security prison. Nick believes in approaching teaching with clearly defined goals and expectations for students and changing the structure of physics education to foster student engagement, inclusion and diversity. Beyond teaching Nick does experimental particles physics with the CMS experiment at CERN.
Trent Call
Department of Family and Child Sciences,
College of Human Sciences
Trent Call is a Doctoral student in the Human Development and Family Science department studying marriage and family therapy at FSU. Prior to attending FSU Trent completed his master’s degree at Oklahoma State University where he also studied marriage and family therapy. His research interests include families where a child has been diagnosed with an intellectual or developmental disability. Trent has been an instructor of record for Family Stress and Resilience and has been a Teaching Assistant for a number of other courses in the department of Child and Family Sciences. passion to teach and mentor led him to the PIE program. As a PIE Associate, Trent is excited to collaborate with other FSU Teaching Assistants and serve the department of Child and Family sciences.
Rossana Cauti
Applied Performance-Strings,
College of Music
Violist Rossana Cauti enjoys a musical career that spans through Europe, Latin America and the United States. She is the Director of the International Chamber Music Festival “Suoni d’Abruzzo” (Italy), in its 7th edition in 2020. She is a Viola D.M. candidate at Florida State University, holds degrees from Southern Illinois University (M.M.), Pescara Conservatory in Italy (A.D. and B.M.), Lugano Hochschule for Musik (Switzerland), “Accademia Internazionale di Musica di Roma” (Italy) and at the “Accademia del Garda” (Italy). She serves as Assistant Principal Viola the Pensacola Symphony and Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, and as Principal Viola the Florida State University Symphony Orchestra. Passionate Chamber Musician, she collaborates in Europe with world-renowned artists such as Yulia Berinskaya (Moscow Conservatory), Andrea Massimo Grassi (Teatro Alla Scala), Marco Fiorentini, Frieder Berthold, Andrej Kurti (Northwestern State University). Rossana is honored to serve as a PIE for the FSU College of Music.
John Combs
Music Theory,
College of Music
John is a second-year PhD student in music theory at FSU. He received a B.M. in piano performance from the University of Louisville and a M.M. in collaborative piano and music theory from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He is interested in the epistemology of music theory, rhythm and meter in 20th-century music, and music literacy in higher education. At FSU, he has taught two sections of Music Theory I and II and will teach Music Theory III in fall 2020. As a PIE Associate, John is excited to promote better teaching and learning for his colleagues and students.
Danielle Davis
Musicology,
College of Music
Danielle Davis is a violist and is currently pursuing a Doctoral degree in Musicology at Florida State University. She is writing her doctoral dissertation on the musical and cultural productions of Pharrell Williams. Additionally, her research interests are in African American musics, Arabic folk singing, musics of the African Diaspora and ethnographic film. Her long-term objectives include combining music education and ethnomusicology to enrich learning experiences beyond traditional lectures. She has created a pedagogical model to affirm Black musicality and identities for Black American string students. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master in Teaching in Music Education from Hampton University, and a Master in Music from Florida State University. She is certified to teach K-12 instrumental music education and has completed teaching assignments working with elementary and secondary orchestra students in the Newport News and Virginia Beach area of Virginia. Danielle currently teaches undergraduate music history courses at Florida State University.
Nora Donoghue
Classics Department,
College of Arts and Sciences
Nora is a doctoral candidate in Roman archaeology in the Classics Department at FSU. Nora received a BA in Classics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MA in Classical Studies from Columbia University. Her research focuses on the social relationships demonstrated by archaeological remains of domestic structures in ancient Italy. Nora teaches the archaeological process in the field as a supervisor for Cosa Excavations in Ansedonia, Italy and for the Poggio Civitate Field School in Murlo, Italy. At FSU Nora has been a graduate instructor since 2015 and has taught courses such as Roman Debates, Greek Debates, Greek Mythology, Medical Terminology, as well as the first three courses in the Latin language program.
TehQuin Forbes
Sociology,
College of Social Sciences and Public Policy
TehQuin is a fifth-year PhD student in Sociology. His dissertation research is a comparative study of how Black LGBTQ+ students come to understand and experience the intersection(s) of blackness and queerness as it relates to the racial context of their college campuses. While at Florida State, he has developed and taught Methods of Social Research, Social Statistics, and Social Problems courses. TehQuin graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida in 2016 with a BA in Sociology. As a PIE associate, he looks forward to helping his peers become better instructors in service of fostering student support and learning.
Rebekah Gordon
Religion Department,
College of Arts and Sciences
Rebekah is a doctoral student in the Religious Studies department, focusing on Religion, Ethics, and Philosophy. She earned her B.A. in Bible & Theology from Johnson University and her M.A. in Religious Studies with a focus on Philosophy of Religion from the University of Denver. Her research interests include the critical study of popular culture, political ethics, secularism, and human dignity in interfaith dialogues. She is the Instructor of Record for REL 3112: Religion and Fantasy Literature, teaching her students how those who came before navigated world-ending tragedies (captivity, the fall of Rome, WW2, etc.) through a religious lens. In a time of Covid-19, where we are all experiencing major paradigmatic shifts, navigating these waters only increases in import. As a PIE associate, she is eager both to further develop her own pedagogical compass and equip other FSU Teaching Assistants to do the same.
Farrah Hersh
English Department,
College of Arts and Sciences
Farrah Hersh is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of English with a concentration in Screen Studies. Originally from New York, she received her M.A. in Media Studies from the New School and a B.S. in Communications from Florida State University. Additionally, she received an honorable mention for her script The Main Attraction from the Writers Network Screenplay and Fiction Competition. Her research interests include classic films from the 1930s and 1940s with a focus on sports and leisure, the modern television western, and gender dynamics in film noir. She has taught College Composition, Film Genres, as well as Perspectives on the Short Story and served as a mentor for the first year TA’s in college composition. As a PIE Associate, she looks forward to mentoring and working with new teaching assistants from across the university.
James Howell
Counseling Psychology and School Psychology,
College of Education
A native Texan, James Howell received his B.A. in Youth and Family Ministry from Abilene Christian University. He also received an M.S. in Counseling and Mental Health Services and an M.Phil. in Professional Counseling and Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. James is currently a Ph.D. student in the Combined Counseling and School Psychology program, where he serves on the Bullying Prevention Research Group and the Technology Intervention and Assessment in Schools (TIAS) research team. While at FSU, James has taught Communications and Human Relations (SDS 4481). James is passionate about classroom engagement and inclusion and is excited to be serving as a PIE Associate during the 2020-2021 school year.
Melanie Medina
Biological Science,
College of Arts and Sciences
Melanie Medina (she/her/hers) graduated with a B.S. in Marine Biology, and a Minor in Italian studies from California State University, Long Beach. Her research interests led her to apply for and be accepted to the NSF’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowship and she earned her M.S. in Biology at California State University, Los Angeles. Melanie is a 3rd year Ph.D. student in the Department of Biological Science’s Ecology and Evolution program. For her doctoral research Melanie is interested in studying the evolutionary aspects of sexual conflict in marine gastropods. She was born in Colombia and immigrated to California when she was 20 years old. Her experiences (as a scientist and immigrant) have shaped her interests in promoting diversity and fostering inclusion in STEM. She believes that improving representation, retention and persistence of diverse students starts with making cultural changes at the institutional level, particularly through equitable teaching practices, and she is excited to provide support to her colleagues in her department. Melanie currently teaches Animal Diversity Lab.
Emily Snowden
Early Childhood Education, School of Teacher Education,
College of Education
Emily is a PhD candidate in the Early Childhood Education program in the School of Teacher Education. She received her B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Education, as well as her M.S. in Early Childhood Education at Florida State. Her doctoral research focuses on preschool as a unique cultural and educational institution, and in her work she utilizes a social constructionist perspective to make sense of how we can support early childhood teachers and caregivers in providing high-quality universal preschool. Emily currently teaches an Introduction to Education course for undergraduate students entering the College of Education. She has a passion for helping pre-service teachers navigate the nuances of learning to take on such a role, and is excited to continue that work as a PIE Teaching Associate.
Lauren Willson
Philosophy,
College of Arts and Sciences
Lauren is a fifth-year PhD student in the Philosophy Department at FSU. She received her BA in Philosophy from the University of New Orleans, and is currently working on her qualifying special area examination. Her area of research is Relational Autonomy with a broader interest in Feminist Philosophy. In addition to serving as a Teaching Assistant for multiple sections of Intro. to Philosophy and Fantasy Girls: Philosophical Examinations of Women and Girls in Science Fiction and Fantasy, Lauren has served as the undergraduate academic advisor to the Philosophy Department for the past two years. She is passionate about ensuring grad students have any and all resources and training available to prepare them not only for serving as a Teaching Assistant, but also for the transition to becoming an Instructor of Record.