Stephanie Au

Assistant Clinical Professor of Nursing, Sue and Bill Gross School of Nursing

Dr. Stephanie Au is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Nursing at the Sue and Bill Gross School of Nursing, where she is dedicated to enhancing students’ critical thinking, clinical judgment, collaboration, and care plan development skills. She teaches in various programs, including the Bachelor of Science and Master of Nursing Science prelicensure programs, and the Doctor of Nursing Practice program. Dr. Au’s research focuses on the role of emotional neuroscience in learning outcomes and developing clinical evaluation tools for assessing clinical competency. She has pioneered innovative teaching methodologies. Her work has shown that students’ emotional connections and experiences significantly influence their ability to learn new content. As a result she has designed and integrated real-world leadership project that empowers students to explore their passions. This project goes beyond clinical skills, fostering leadership skills and a commitment to community well-being among students (MEPN Students Expand the Impact of Nursing | UCI Nursing). Additionally, Dr. Au has worked to develop an innovative and comprehensive Interprofessional Education curriculum that incorporates graduate nursing students, undergraduate nursing students, graduate pharmacy students and medical students (The art of collaborative healthcare – UCI News).

Additionally, Dr. Au serves as the Director of the Interprofessional Education and Practice Collaborative at the College of Health Sciences (Interprofessional Education & Practice Collaborative – UCI Health Affairs). In this role, she leads faculty from medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and public health in interprofessional education and practice initiatives (The art of collaborative healthcare – UCI News). This collaborative approach transforms health professions education and healthcare delivery by fostering community-centered partnerships, collaborative learning, interprofessional research, and advancements in practice. UCI’s health sciences programs are among the first to integrate this collaborative form of healthcare education as a required curriculum across multiple programs, preparing students for real-world healthcare settings.

Outside of her role at the School of Nursing, Dr. Au serves on multiple boards, including the National Association of Family Nurse Practitioners (NAFNP) as a founding member, the Hoag advisory board, and the University of Pennsylvania Alumni board. Her contributions to nursing education and healthcare leadership have been recognized nationally, as she was a semi-finalist for the National Macy Scholar Foundation. Dr. Au’s dedication to nursing education and leadership development is shaping the future of healthcare delivery and patient care.

Rachael M. Barry

Assistant Professor of Teaching, School of Biological Sciences

Rachael Barry joined UCI as an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry in 2019. She teaches courses related to microbiology and biochemistry. Her research group aims to understand and improve student-faculty interactions as well as develop strategies to increase inclusion, accessibility, and student success. In addition to her research, she also creates curricula that integrate authentic research experiences in undergraduate teaching labs.

She is involved in a number of efforts related to undergraduate and graduate education and professional training. She is the Co-Director of the Microbiology and Immunology major, one of the specialized majors within the School of Biological Sciences. Rachael is also the Biological Sciences representative on UCI’s Subcommittee on Courses & Continuing, Part-Time, & Summer Session Education (SCOC). She is a co-advisor for Morning Sign Out at UCI, a student organization focused on biomedical science communications. At the graduate level, she serves as a mentor for Molecular Biology & Biochemistry PhD students supported a Department of Education GAANN Fellowship. Outside of UCI, she is the Secretary of the Association for Biology Laboratory Education. She actively partners with DTEI and presents in various faculty development workshops where she shares teaching experience and resources to help other faculty members explore pedagogical innovations and effective teaching practices.

Stacy Branham

Associate Professor, Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

Stacy Branham is an Associate Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. Her goal as an educator is to create inclusive spaces where students are excited and empowered to learn skills that will advance social equity through computing.

She directs the INclusive Studio for Innovative Technology and Education (INsite), where her team investigates how technologies operate in social settings where one or more people have a disability, yielding actionable design guidance and proof of concept prototypes.

Stacy is also a founding member of UCI’s Accessibility Research Collective (ARC). Her efforts in promoting accessibility have been recognized as the recipient of the 2022 UCI Digital Accessibility Innovator Award and Virginia Tech Computer Science’s Distinguished Early Career Alumni Award.

Bob Pelayo

Associate Professor of Teaching, School of Physical Sciences

Bob Pelayo is an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Mathematics Department at UC Irvine. Much of his work focuses on creating effective curricular pathways and opportunities for students in mathematics while also optimizing student learning and engagement within individual classes. Currently, he has several external grants that help promote these efforts. His $1.4M BioCalculus Preparation, Engagement, and Application (BioCalc PEA) program, funded by the California Learning Lab, has allowed him and his team to restructure BioCalculus curricula at different universities throughout California. This work focuses on effective active learning practices in the BioCalculus classroom and creating open-resource curricula that genuinely bridges Biology & Mathematics. He is also part of the Noticing in Mathematics for Student Success NSF-funded grant that studies “teacher noticing” in UCI’s Introduction to Abstract Mathematics course (Math 13). He also helps run the Southern California Data Science Fellowship program, an NSF-funded REU that provides Data Science training and research experiences for undergraduates.

Bob also served as Vice Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the UCI Mathematics department, and is the Data Science Faculty advisor. He was also a main author for the new AP PreCalculus course framework, and is the co-chair for the committee that writes and reviews questions for the AP exam.

David Trend

Professor, Claire Trevor School of the Arts

David Trend is a Professor in the Department of Art at the University of California, Irvine. Before arriving at UC Irvine in 1997, Trend was dean of Creative Arts at De Anza College in Cupertino, CA, where he developed multimedia partnerships with schools and corporations in Silicon Valley. Prior to that, Trend was graduate program coordinator in the Inter-Arts Center of San Francisco State University. During the past fifteen years, Trend has been a frequent consultant for foundations, state arts and humanities councils, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Trend’s teaching draws connections among the fields of cultural studies, critical pedagogy, and media analysis. Courses he has taught at UCI include Language and Vision in Everyday Life, A Culture Divided, Issues in Media Violence and Fear, Seminar in Cultural Activism and Radical Democracy, Issues in K-12 Education, and Media, Art, and Technology.

In recent years, David has played a vital role in supporting DTEI faculty development programs. He and Megan Linos, DTEI’s Director of Digital and Online Learning, received the 2022 Confronting Extremism through Community, Thriving and Wellness award, which supported 40+ faculty and graduate students cultivating a DEI-A culture in the classroom via the first Inclusive Teaching Institute in Spring 2023.