Brandeis University sign at the front of campus

January 28, 2021 

Abigail Arnold | Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Department Prize Instructorships have been awarded to three PhD students, in Physics, Psychology, and History, for the Spring 2022 semester. The awards enable these students to design and teach their own courses at Brandeis. The students were selected by their departments, based on a syllabus, CV, past course evaluations, and statements of interest.

“I am always excited when instructorships are awarded,” says GSAS Dean Wendy Cadge. “Not only do they reaffirm our commitment to pedagogical training, they also enable departments to add interesting new courses to their existing offerings.”

Read about the recipients and their courses below: 

Narges Iraji, Physics
Science and Science Fiction 

Works of fiction have a magic of revitalizing the reader’s curiosity and imagination. Science fiction, particularly, gets the readers excited about understanding how the world works and imagining their place in it. In this course, we use science fiction stories to build a fresh relationship with math and science and feel empowered to stay curious and ask questions.

Hannah Jung, History
The Personal is Political in American History

“The Personal Is Political” is a slogan that was popularized in the 1970s to draw attention to how the experiences of the sexual, bodily, and familial experiences were inextricably connected to larger cultural and political structures. Starting in the seventeenth century and finishing at the end of the twentieth century, this course examines the overlapping worlds of the personal and political.

Xin Yao Lin, Psychology
Technology Use and Well-Being: Multidisciplinary Perspectives 

Drawing on perspectives from psychology, neuroscience, computer-human interaction, and public health, this course explores the positive and negative impact of technology usage on our well-being across the lifespan and how these technologies influence social life, adult development/aging, and health/health behavior.