Faculty

Katayoun is an educator, advocate, and mentor. She is the founder of the Interdisciplinary Science Program; an undergraduate program that empowers students with the knowledge, values, and methods of science to address pressing planetary health challenges. She has developed and implemented interdisciplinary science courses using a Planetary Health Framework. Her courses include an infectious disease course for graduate students studying International Affairs, a week-long intensive lab course for Design and Technology students competing in the national Biodesign Challenge, a short course connected to the New Wave Science Film Festival, a mentoring course for undergraduates alongside a summer fellowship program with Biobus, and a summer bridge course, Biology, Art and Social Justice, for incoming freshman participating in the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP). She hosts faculty development workshops on infographic thinking, case studies, critical pedagogy, meta cognitive reflection, and authentic assessment to promote scientific innovation that is socially just.  She has served as a Monitoring Editor and Reviewer for Life Sciences Education journal and Editorial Board member for The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science. As a Leadership Fellow for Science for New Civic Engagements and Social Responsibilities (SENCER), Katayoun designed the open access Stem Cells Across the Curriculum that employs STREAMD (STEM + Arts, Design and Responsibility) perspectives.

She is the recipient of The New School Distinguished University Teaching Award, The Eugene Lang College Excellence in Academic Advising, and the University Excellence Award for Social Justice Teaching. At the national level she received the John A. Moore Award for Science as a Way of Knowing by the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology and the William E. Bennett Award from SENCER for Extraordinary Achievements in Citizen Science. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from UC Berkeley in 1996 and prior to Eugene Lang College she was a visiting professor at UC Berkeley, Pomona College, and Harvey Mudd College.

Ph.D. Cell and Molecular Biology UC Berkeley 1996

B.A. Biology University of Iowa 1989