Heather Macias, a doctoral student in the Department of Education at UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School, has received a 2018-19 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. Teaching assistants play a vital role in enhancing the teaching mission of the University. The Outstanding Teaching Assistant Awards recognize the contributions of graduate students to the teaching and learning process at UC Santa Barbara. Up to four recipients are selected campus-wide, each of whom receives an honorarium of $1,000 and a framed certificate. UC Santa Barbara’s Academic Senate honored Macias’s achievements as an exemplary TA at the Faculty Legislature meeting on April 18, 2019. Fittingly, Macias couldn’t attend the ceremony as she was teaching. She has regularly TA-ed for AS AM 5: Intro to Asian American Literature and then taught AS AM 157: Asian Americans in Education; ED 330: Essential SCWriP; and ED L 321: Reading and Writing in Content.
Heather Macias is a doctoral student with research interests in multilingual literacy, literacy education, and sociocultural learning theory under Dr. Richard Durán; 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. Previously, Heather served as the President of the Graduate Student Association for the Education Department. Currently, she is the Vice President of Academic Affairs for the Graduate Student Association at UCSB, the UCSB Campus Liaison Representative for the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the Graduate Student Representative for the University of California Student Mental Health Oversight Committee, and the Graduate Student Representative for the UCSB Student Resources Building Governance Board.