SOLER

Mauricio Rada is a Doctoral Student in Urban Planning at Columbia GSAPP. His research focuses on the intersection of disaster risk, informality, and climate sustainability. Mauricio’s work combines urban planning and quantitative methods, drawing from his experience in multilateral institutions and data-oriented companies. Mauricio holds a Master's degree in Urban Planning from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s in Engineering from Universidad del Pacífico (Peru). Pedagogically, his interests center on engaging students with diverse disciplinary backgrounds using active-learning tools.

Bennett Slibeck is a PhD candidate at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), where he studies dinosaur footprints, the End Triassic Extinction (202 million years ago), and global environmental change through the Mesozoic (252-65 million years ago). A lifelong New Yorker, Bennnett completed his undergraduate study at Columbia University, with a BA in Earth Science. Recently, he has been working to understand the role of awe as an affective lens in geoscience education, through formal research and his role as a GSAS Teaching Scholar. Bennett considers himself a storyteller above all else, and believes that paleontology provides our best framework for navigating an increasingly volatile future. Through his career as a scientist and educator, Bennett hopes to inspire people to see the deeply intrinsic sense of wonder gained through careful observation of any natural system, such that they carry that wonder with them into a more beautiful world.

Sophia Windemuth is a 5th-year PhD student in Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She went to Cornell University for her BS degree in biomedical engineering and computer science, and is now working on engineering probiotic therapies for brain cancer. Sophia has had a passion for teaching since her first tutoring job in middle school, and continued her teaching at Cornell University and Columbia University as a teaching assistant and instructor for the Science Honors Program, and also was a Lead Teaching Fellow (2024-2025) for the Biomedical Engineering department at Columbia University. Her main interest in pedagogy is increasing student engagement, using technology to make active learning more accessible, and implementing universal design for learning to teach students of all backgrounds and abilities. In her spare time, she is outside with her golden retriever named Pretzel. 

Read about the FAA position here.

Young Na is a fifth-year PhD student in the Department of Germanic Languages. Her research focuses on pedagogy and 18th–19th German literature. She is an avid teacher, having taught elementary and intermediate German language courses and a translation course. In Fall 2024, Young was a Teaching Assistant for Contemporary Civilization as part of the Justice-in-Education Initiative’s Prison Education Program. In addition to classroom experience, Young has been involved with the Center for Teaching and Learning, first as a Teaching Observation Fellow, and now as a Senior Teaching Consultant. She is looking forward to gaining valuable academic administration skills in her role as a Digital Content Fellow at SOLER.