Dr. Julia Kregenow is an Associate Teaching Professor at Penn State University. She teaches large undergraduate Intro Astronomy courses for non-science majors both in a large lecture and online formats. She also mentors and instructs new graduate TAs (teaching assistants) and hosts workshops for new faculty, instructing them in interactive teaching techniques, pedagogy, and how students learn. She co-founded the Penn State STEM Teaching Group, which maintains a list of over 100 faculty and other educators that periodically get together to share ideas and strategies, and host workshops, discussions, and speakers. Julia got her PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics at UC Berkeley in 2007, where she caught the teaching bug as a graduate student instructor. After a brief hiatus doing a science policy fellowship in Washington DC, Julia continued teaching as an adjunct instructor at Cornell University and a postdoctoral scholar doing education research at Ithaca College before joining the faculty at Penn State in 2009. She also loves to write. In 2013 she co-authored the textbook “A Student’s Guide to the Mathematics of Astronomy”, and she has written three children’s books about science.
