Liberal Arts faculty recognized for teaching, research, and service in 2021-2022
Published Apr 25, 2022The Liberal Arts Program is pleased to announce the winners of the 2022 departmental awards in teaching, research and service.
Dr. Aymen Elsheikh was recognized for excellence in teaching; Dr. Tehmina Pirzada was recognized for excellence in research; and Dr. Sara Hillman received recognition for service.
Elsheikh received the Liberal Arts Teaching Excellence Award. He has a Ph.D. in literacy, culture and language education with a concentration on TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). He joined Texas A&M at Qatar in 2017 and has since made great contributions to the teaching of English. He has taught ASCC 289 Foundations of English, ENGL 104 Composition and Rhetoric, and INST 222 Foundations of Education in a Multicultural Society. He has been an international leader in TESOL, and has given keynote and invited presentations based on his pedagogical practices at Texas A&M at Qatar. He has also led no fewer than seven STEAM showcases at Texas A&M at Qatar since his arrival here. Students appreciate Elsheikh’s commitment to learning and his success in creating a stimulating learning environment for his students.
Pirzada received the Liberal Arts Research Excellence Award. She is a literary and cultural theorist with research interests focused on Muslim girlhood, youth cultures of the global South, and visual and popular cultures of postcolonial South Asia. In 2021, she published no fewer than three articles and presented at seven international meetings, illustrating her research proficiency. Since joining Texas A&M at Qatar's Liberal Arts department in 2020, Pirzada has made significant contributions as a prolific researcher in the program.
Hillman received the Liberal Arts Service Excellence Award. She is an applied linguist whose primary research interest includes the role of language ideologies, identities, and emotions in how people learn, teach, and use languages. Since joining the Liberal Arts department in 2015, Hillman has been a tireless advocate for the Liberal Arts Program within Texas A&M at Qatar and the wider Education City community. In addition to numerous other service roles in the field of English at Texas A&M at Qatar, she is a member of the Qatar Faculty Forum, the Women’s Faculty Forum, and this spring served with distinction on the Advisory Committee on Reorganization. Most recently she organized and chaired the Multiversity symposium.