If you have taken part in any of the programs of the GSI Teaching & Resource Center, you’ll know that our work benefits tremendously from the expertise of current and former graduate students. And this has been the case since the establishment of the GSI Center in 1989! From facilitating panels and workshops at the teaching conference and across 375 pedagogy courses to meeting individually with GSIs to provide one-on-one consultations and classroom observations of teaching, our Teaching Consultants and Postdoc Fellows ensure that the work of the GSI Center stays current with the needs of GSIs. 

Should you wish to meet with a member of our team to discuss any aspect of teaching, arrange for a consultant to observe your class, or get feedback on a course you are designing or teaching-related materials you are preparing for the academic job search, we encourage you to complete our very brief consultation request form. Our team members look forward to meeting with you!

Noah Katznelson

Noah Katznelson

Postdoctoral Fellow

Noah completed her Ph.D. in Education at UC Berkeley in the summer of 2023. Her doctoral research focused on the neoliberalization of California’s bilingual education policy discourse over the past two decades. While a graduate student at Berkeley, Noah served as a GSI for a number of courses including Language and Power, The Politics of Educational Inequality, and Personal Ethics for the 21st Century. She worked as a Teaching Consultant at the GSI Teaching & Resource Center for several years prior to joining the team as a postdoc. Noah enjoys collaborating with her colleagues to continuously rethink and refine the Center’s offerings in hopes to provide GSIs with the support, resources, and inspiration to do their best.

Kristen Nelson

Kristen Nelson

Postdoctoral Fellow

Kristen Nelson is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the GSI Center. She received her Ph.D. in summer 2023 from the Department of Sociology at Berkeley. Kristen has focused much of her work at the GSI Center on expanding inclusive pedagogy across campus. She enjoys leading workshops on creating inclusive classrooms in various departments and creating written resources on this topic. Kristen is looking forward to learning more about navigating conflict in the classroom as she works on the GSI Center’s Bias and Bigotry Initiative project this school year.

Laura Ritland

Laura Ritland

Laura Ritland is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of English. Her research focuses on the intersections between political movements for public adult education and the evolution of literary studies, from the late nineteenth century to the present. Aside from teaching literature and composition classes at Berkeley, she has also led creative writing workshops for children and teens, both in the Bay Area and her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia. As a Teaching Consultant, she has facilitated workshops on inclusive pedagogy, syllabus and course design, and teaching writing-based courses. She enjoys helping GSIs design courses that tap into their unique research expertise while also empowering their students as independent learners. 

Dakota Robinson

Dakota Robinson

Dakota is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Linguistics. She researches linguistic variation and change in bilingual communities, focusing on minoritized language environments and situations of language endangerment. Before coming to Berkeley, she completed a Master of Education and taught language and literacy classes for adults in the Greater Boston area. Dakota has facilitated workshops on inclusive pedagogy and enhancing student participation as a Teaching Consultant, and she enjoys supporting GSIs in developing their unique pedagogical styles that honor their own positionalities as well as the needs of their students.