Graduate Student Association Excellence in Teaching Award for 2017-18 winners Heather Macias (left) and Kelly Whaling (right)
Heather Macias and Kelly Whaling of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School have won Graduate Student Association (GSA) Excellence in Teaching Awards for 2017-18. The GSA Excellence in Teaching Award recognizes graduate students who have shown excellence and gone above and beyond as teachers at UC Santa Barbara; Macias and Whaling were among the campus-wide eight winners.
Macias is a doctoral student in the Department of Education with research interests in multilingual literacy, literacy education, and sociocultural learning theory under Dr. Richard Duran; she also has interdisciplinary research interests in applied linguistics and feminist studies. Heather received her B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of Southern California in 2006 and received a single subject teaching credential in both English and Fine Arts, as well as an M.A.T. in Secondary Education from the University of Southern California in 2007. After graduation, Heather taught for seven years at the largest charter school in the nation, Granada Hills Charter High School, where she taught English/Language Arts and served as a community service-based club advisor, in addition to working as an assistant cheer coach/advisor for nationally ranked teams.
Whaling is a doctoral student in the Department of Counseling, Clinical and School Psychology with an emphasis in counseling. Whaling’s research interests broadly regard examining issues pertaining to Latin@ mental health from social justice frameworks, and specifically, access to mental health care and community outreach/interventions for Latin American immigrant youth who have experienced trauma, depression, and/or suicidality. She is working with Dr. Jill Sharkey on this project exploring the effectiveness of mindfulness-based activities, which are easily accessible to underserved communities as they can be carried out by lay individuals and youth themselves, with the goal of improving trauma symptoms and other outcomes for commercially sexually exploited children, a group of youth who are predominantly multiracial and LGBT.