She earned her B.S. degree in Physics from Yale University in 1995 and her Ph. D. degree in Biological Physics from MIT in 2001. Dr. Zastavker's research interests lie in the field of STEM education with specific emphasis on innovative pedagogical and curricular practices at the intersection with the issues of gender and diversity. With the goal of improving learning opportunities for all students and equipping faculty with the knowledge and skills necessary to create such opportunities, Dr. Zastavker's recent work involves questions pertaining to students' motivational attitudes and their learning journeys in a variety of educational environments. One of the founding faculty at Olin College, Dr. Zastavker has been engaged in development and implementation of project-based experiences in fields ranging from science to engineering and design to social sciences (e.g., Critical Reflective Writing; Teaching and Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering, etc.) All of these activities share a common goal of creating curricular and pedagogical structures as well as academic cultures that facilitate students' interests, motivation, and desire to persist in engineering. Through this work, outreach, and involvement in the community, Dr. Zastavker continues to focus on the issues of women and minorities in science/engineering. Ms. Abigail M Fry, Olin College of Engineering Abby Fry is a second-year student at Olin College of Engineering majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Ms. Holly Nguyen Holly Nguyen is a Master's student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), studying Computer Science. She completed her Bachelor's at WPI with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Business. Gretchen Rice, Olin College Gretchen is originally from Maine and plans to graduate from Olin College in May 2020. Outside of classes and GCSP, Gretchen is president of Olin's A Capella group and works as a Resident Resource, a teacher's assistant, and a tour guide.

This article examines methodological and institutional challenges for empirically measuring student performance on writing. Writing's intrinsic subjectivity and the great variety of writing formats appropriate to diverse contexts raise fundamental questions about the empirical bias of the assessment culture taking root in U.S. higher education. At the same time, the academic training of humanist scholars, who typically have primary responsibility for writing pedagogy in universities, may predispose them to skepticism about assessment culture's broader mission. This article narrates the process by which the Humanities Department at Lawrence Technological University implemented a writing assessment process designed to address these challenges and evaluates the data generated by this process.

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This article examines methodological and institutional challenges for empirically measuring student performance on writing. Writing's intrinsic subjectivity and the great variety of writing formats appropriate to diverse contexts raise fundamental questions about the empirical bias of the assessment culture taking root in U.S. higher education. At the same time, the academic training of humanist scholars, who typically have primary responsibility for writing pedagogy in universities, may predispose them to skepticism about assessment culture's broader mission. This article narrates the process by which the Humanities Department at Lawrence Technological University implemented a writing assessment process designed to address these challenges and evaluates the data generated by this process.

She is a researcher in the fields of both water and sanitation, as well as a researcher and practitioner in using interdisciplinary thinking and approaches to solving environmental and sustainability problems. Dr. Wood is also pursuing her interests in the areas of equity and justice through education and engagement with context and values.In addition to her teaching and advising duties at Olin, Dr. Wood serves as the Director of the Babson-Olin-Wellesley Three College Sustainability Certificate Program, the Director of Olin's Grand Challenges Scholars Program, on the Catalyst Board of the open source journal Murmurations, and as a member of Olin's Context and Ethics in Engineering Education Working Group.After graduating from Harvard University with a B.A. in Dramatic Literature, Dr. Wood worked professionally in theater and wrote and recorded two musical albums. She then returned to school to study engineering, earning a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Rutgers University. Dr. Wood then went on to earn a Master of Science in Engineering in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, while working with the Austin chapter of Engineers Without Borders as a volunteer and project lead for a project in Peru.She has published and presented on incentivizing decentralized sanitation and wastewater treatment, on sustainability of coastal community water and sanitation service options, as well as on integrating liberal arts and STEM education, currently through the vehicle of the Grand Challenges Scholars Program. She has co-designed workshops oriented toward educational change for Olin's Summer Institute and the joint Olin College-Emerson College event: Remaking Education.