Announcing the 2026 RET Certificate of Excellence Awardees

Shared on behalf of The Searle Center: 

The Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2026 Reflective and Effective Teaching Certificate of Excellence. 

• Emily Barron, PhD Candidate in Anthropology  
• Pia Rodriguez, PhD Candidate in Music 
• Naya Tadavarthy, MFA student in Costume Design 
• Citlayi Villaseñor, PhD student in Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences 

This inaugural award honors individuals who embody the spirit of Searle’s Reflective and Effective Teaching program, which offers a unique cohort-based learning community for graduate students and postdocs who aspire to improve student learning. The recipients of this Certificate of Excellence have distinguished themselves among the cohort by engaging deeply with evidence‑informed teaching and putting that learning into practice with intention, curiosity, and integrity. They have provided leadership and support to their peers in the program as well, advancing the learning and development of the entire cohort. 

Emily Barron is a biological anthropologist and PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern. Her work examines how early life stress influences human brain development through an adaptive and evolutionary framework by integrating neuroimaging methods to examine cognition and brain metabolism. After completing her PhD in the Spring of 2027, she plans to join researchers at Harvard as a fellow to continue developing accessible, field-friendly approaches for measuring brain metabolism. As she works towards a career as a professor, she hopes to foster inclusive and engaging learning environments that encourage students to think critically, take intellectual risks, and connect research and classroom lessons to real-world issues.  

Pia Rodriguez is a PhD Candidate in Musicology at the Bienen School of Music. She holds an MA in Musicology from Northwestern and a BM in Music Education from Trinity University. Her research examines the ceremonial music drama composed for and by noblemen in the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with critical insight into how these works functioned as self-representational aids and reinforced political mythologization of the Lucchese citizen. Pia’s research abroad has been supported by the TGS Dissertation Proposal Development Program. Her advisor is Dr. Linda Austern. Beyond her research, her commitment to pedagogy has led to years of collaboration with the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching, and she looks forward to serving the center as a Reflective Teaching Guide in the coming year. 

Naya Tadavarthy recently completed her MFA in costume design in the School of Communication in Spring 2026. Originally from Saint Paul, Minnesota, her design practice engages in dramaturgical, historical, artistic, and emotional research to create a visually layered and meaningful language for storytelling onstage, and she is passionate about using the variety of skills required for her discipline to develop engaging and inclusive teaching strategies. 

Citlayi Villaseñor is a recent graduate of the Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences (IBiS) PhD program. Citlayi was raised in Escondido, California and earned her B.S. from San Diego State University. Her PhD research in the Kamat lab improved our understanding of the relationship between lipid membrane biophysical properties and membrane protein folding, structure, and function. She plans to pursue a career in STEM education, empowering students from all backgrounds to develop and test hypotheses they are curious about while becoming compassionate critical thinkers. 

Reflecting on the exceptional contributions of this year’s awardees, Searle Senior Director, Jennifer Keys noted, “These awardees stood out—not just for the strength of their teaching artifacts, but for the leadership they demonstrated in their small groups, the insight they brought to our conversations, and the generosity with which they contributed to our learning community.” 

The Certificate of Excellence recipients were selected by RET program leadership and the Reflective Teaching Guides, the RET program alumni who act as mentors to the current cohort.