As Associate Director of Residential Academic Initiatives, Nancy is a key resource for the residential colleges, supervising their Assistant Chairs and advising student leaders on the Residential College Board. Nancy also connects students and affiliated faculty to offerings from campus partners like One Book One Northwestern and the Office of Undergraduate Research. In addition, Nancy organizes excursions around Chicago, Evanston, and campus that foster informal faculty-student engagement. Nancy is a Northwestern alumna (Ph.D. Performance Studies) with higher education experience in university teaching, academic advising, cultural/education programs, and assessment.
Marcelo Worsley is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Learning Sciences at Northwestern University. His research integrates artificial intelligence and data mining with multimodal interfaces to study and support human learning. He directs the technological innovations for inclusive learning and teaching (tiilt) lab which works with community and industry partners around the world to empower people and organizations through the design and use of equity focused learning tools. These tools include both pedagogical and technological solutions for in school and out of school learning.
Paul Ramírez is Associate Professor of History and Religious Studies (by courtesy) at Northwestern. A historian of Mexico by training, his research interests lie in the adoption of modern medical technologies, the religious dimensions of human labor, and the role of salt in peasant communities. At Northwestern, he directs Science in Human Culture, an interdisciplinary program in science studies with an adjunct major and minor. He also mentors undergraduate research through the Posner Research Program, the Summer Research Opportunity Program (SROP), and the Leopold Fellows Program with the Chabraja Center for Historical Studies. In his spare time, he enjoys piano and hikes with his dog, a Catahoula Leopard named Lila.
Ji is a Ph.D. candidate in Literacy, Language, and Culture at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). At Northwestern University, she has taught various Chinese language courses at different levels, from novice to advanced, for heritage and non-heritage tracks. Each year, Northwestern students nominate professors to be on Associated Student Government (ASG) Faculty Honor Roll for their outstanding and dedicated work. Ji was selected to be honored twice in 2016-2017 and 2019-2020. She was also the first prize recipient for Innovative Excellence in the Teaching of Chinese as a Foreign Language awarded by the Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA), USA, in 2021-2022. The relevant project was reported by the newspaper The Daily Northwestern.
Before coming to Northwestern, she taught Chinese at Washington and Lee University and the University of Virginia (UVA). Ji also has extensive teaching experience in intensive and high-quality summer programs. She taught at UVA in Shanghai summer program for two summers and Middlebury College (Summer Chinese School) for three summers. She is an Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) tester certified by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).
Ji’s research interests are in second language acquisition, Chinese pedagogy and heritage language education. She is particularly interested in Chinese heritage language learners’ identity construction and development, learning strategies, and heritage language program development.
Her publications have appeared as a column article in the journal Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies, and in the magazine Times Higher Education. Her research articles have been published as conference proceedings, and in peer-reviewed journals such as Foreign Language Annals, Journal of Technology and Chinese Language Teaching, Studies in Chinese Learning and Teaching, and Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages. She recently co-authored and published a textbook for Chinese heritage language learners titled 传承中文 Modern Chinese for Heritage Beginners—Stories about Us (Routledge, 2023). https://www.routledge.com/
Janka Pieper joined Northwestern in 2010, and has since been working in marketing and communications in the fields of international programming and relations. In her current role, as Senior Director of Communication and Intercultural Learning at the Office of the Vice President for International Relations, Janka develops communication plans for global initiatives and internationalization efforts, drafts executive communications, and co-directs the Intercultural Learning Initiative, facilitating workshops and designing programming on cultural competency. She has written extensively about programs in Germany, France, Serbia, China, South Africa, Cuba, and Mexico. Before joining Northwestern, Janka was in charge of PR and Communications at the German American Chamber of Commerce in Chicago. Janka has a BA and MA in Communication with a focus on mass communication, international public relations and intercultural communication from Illinois State University. She also serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors at the DANK Haus German American Cultural Center in Chicago.