TAs for LAS 101 and 102
First-Year Experience teaching assistants provide an invaluable opportunity to teach and train LAS 101 and LAS 102 undergraduate interns to help them connect and support first-year and transfer students beginning their college experience in the College of LAS.
Alongside mentoring accomplished LAS undergraduate students, FYE TAs gain strong interpersonal and public speaking techniques, valuable teaching experience, and develop relationships with fellow TAs and instructors.
Meet the 2023-2024 TAs
James Coburn
James Coburn is a second-year graduate student in East Asian languages & cultures, with a concentration in Japanese and Korean archaeology and history. He received his undergraduate degree in modern East Asian history with a minor in archaeology and a master’s degree in Japanese and Korean history and archaeology. His research interests revolve around the development of the Japanese culture, specifically in the Yayoi and Kofun period, as well as the establishment of a solidified Korean culture during the Mumun period in Korea. James has worked with LAS First Year Experience since Fall 2022, and as well as a teacher who has taught in Japan and as an adjunct professor in America. He is passionate about helping students in any way possible.
Yaning Cao
Yaning Cao is a second-year doctoral student in education policy, organization, and leadership (EPOL); her concentration is human resources development. Before Yaning started the doctoral program, she worked in a Sino-U.S. joint venture university in China as a student affairs staff member. Yaning loves to work with students and aims to help them create memorable college experiences. As an international and first-generation student, Yaning is actively engaged in various offices and departments, like International Education, the Asian American Culture Center, Counseling Center, University Housing, Global Education and Training Office, and International Students & Scholars Service. She is ready to be a resource for all students, especially for first-year students!
Adetutu Fabusoro
Adetutu Fabusoro is a PhD student in Human Resource Development in the Department of Education, Policy, Organization, and Leadership. Adetutu has a bachelor’s degree and a master's degree in communication and language arts and another master's degree in applied linguistics (TESL). She has more than ten years of experience in the corporate sector in HR learning and development, marketing, relationship management, and media in her home country, and three years of experience in higher education teaching in the U.S. Her research interest is in communicative competence, performance, and language learning in corporate America. She is currently a teaching assistant with the LAS First Year Experience (FYE) and has been with the program since 2022.
Carileigh Jones
Carileigh Jones is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology. She received her bachelor’s degree in sociology from Hampton University in the Spring of 2018 and her master’s degree in sociology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2021. Her research interests include urban sociology, inequality, race, crime, punishment, social control, and education. Currently, her research focuses on censorship policies and procedures in U.S. prisons, and the ways in which they impact incarcerated individuals’ access to knowledge.
Viktoria Loidl
Viktoria Loidl is a third-year PhD student in education policy, organization, and leadership (EPOL) with a concentration in human resource development. She received a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in European Union studies. Her doctoral research interests revolve around the future of work: 1) preparing organizations and employees for the digital transformation, and 2) sustainable careers and the meaning of work. Viktoria has been with LAS First Year Experience since 2018 and, as a first-generation student, is passionate about supporting students’ transition to the university and their professional development.
Stephanie Pérez
Stephanie Pérez is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Institute of Communications Research. Her focus on spectral Latine/x girlhoods in media interrogates transnational racializations, transgressive tropes, adultification, and the sociopolitical implications of media upon ethnoracialized people, especially teenagers. Stephanie co-curated the exhibit titled “Quinceañeras: Celebration, Joy, and Ethnic Pride” at the Spurlock Museum in 2022, and organized The Little Mercadito to support incoming students with free home essentials and school supplies as they transition to campus life during the 2022-2023 academic year. Her forthcoming and published work appears in Smithsonian Voices, FLOW, and the edited volumes Rebooting Inequality: Critical Media Studies Approaches to Remakes for NYU Press and Handbook of Ethnicity and Race in Communication for Routledge. This is Stephanie’s first year working with LAS First Year Experience.