His passion for pedagogy is evident as soon as you bring up teaching. Reflecting on how his approach to the classroom evolved since his undergraduate TAing days, Joseph explains that in graduate school, “I focused more on teaching students to be self-sufficient and engage in social learning. In the last few classes I was a teaching assistant for, I wanted the students to spend more of their time working together.”
To be clear, Joseph has gone beyond simply refining his approach and goals as an instructor, tasks that in and of themselves are hardly simple. As recognized in the citation for his award, he has “led teams of peers, providing guidance and advice for their own teaching practice” and “helped launch and lead a growing program to support incoming undergraduate students who may have felt that they did not belong or could not flourish.”
It's worth pointing out that this is not the first time a Physics PhD graduate student has won the Presidential Award. Indeed, the precedent and the prescience of being selected is on full display with faculty lecturer Rebecca Grossman. She earned her bachelor’s degree in astrophysics from Barnard, and, like Joseph, chose to stay within the Columbia community for her Physics PhD, where she studied black hole orbital planets. In 2006, she, too, earned the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student. Today, her interest as a faculty member is, fittingly, “Physics Education.”
Will Joseph follow in Becky’s footsteps as a future faculty member of CU Physics? One can only hope. Regardless, the department and its students have already benefited tremendously from his dedication and hard work. Or as his citation perfectly summarizes: “Your care for students and your encouragement of them to achieve their full potential are widely known, and your students love you.”
Congratulations, Joseph! Thank you for investing as much in the success of others as you do in your own work.
