By Bella Grimaldi Asst. News Editor What is your academic and professional background? I've been a visiting lecturer here since 2013. I got my Ph.D. at Boston University in archeology in 2016 but before that, I started my undergraduate at Stony Brook University in New York in anthropology, and I took a few years in between to teach high school. While I was still doing my Ph.D. at BU, there was an email about an opening for a lecturer position here, just to teach. I think it was one class at that point, and it was archeology. I applied and gave all my information to Dr. Alberti, who is one of the other anthropologists here, and I've been working here ever since. I teach cultural anthropology, I teach archeology, and probably the most popular class that I teach, in terms of people who sign up, is forensic anthropology. Last year, we taught a forensic science lab course that I'm hoping to teach again next year. Additionally, I teach with the college planning collaborative. It's a sort of cooperation between here and MassBay, where we teach college classes to high school students in the region. I actually teach two to three courses with them, and then two here. So this semester, I'm teaching, I think, five courses all together - one at Waltham High School, one at Framingham High School, and then two here. And I'm also doing my course on the weekend, so I'm pretty busy. What is your teaching philosophy? I teach, largely, anthropology classes, which are based in culture. So I think that by exploring our own cultural background, our own families and our own identities, we can be ready to learn more about others. So I think my classes are all deeply rooted in culture. I take a lot of inspiration from my own cultural background because I'm Greek American. And I think sort of opening the conversation, the culture conversation in my classes, it helps a lot. Also, I don't take myself too seriously. I think that's a very important kind of thing. I always try to take into account the students' points of views, what position they might be in, what kinds of things they're going through. So I stop regularly and tell myself, “OK, so think about yourself when you were this age, or when you were pursuing your undergrad. What other things were going on? How can I make my classroom more equitable to all of these students?” I think it's constantly adapting what I'm doing. Listening to students, speaking with them, and not letting myself - my teaching and materials, particularly in the way I'm approaching pedagogy - stagnate. I think that that's what can happen if you don't update what you're doing. So basically, to try to keep in tune with the culture of the students, what they need regularly. And like I said, I think that that also takes not taking yourself too seriously and listening. What are some of your hobbies? I'm an avid video gamer. I play a lot of different video games, mostly role-playing games, some strategy games, things like that. Although I don't really have much time to do that very often, I try to find times of the year when I have a few weeks ready and just binge on that stuff. I also really like television movies, especially science fiction. And I’ve got to say, I do like flower arranging. Got to be honest, any excuse I can have to do it. I worked for years at a flower shop while I was in grad school on the floor, and it's one of the most relaxing things. In fact, I have a couple of books on it here in my office. So whether it's getting an arrangement just to bring it home and kind of playing around with it from Trader Joe's, or for an event, that is something that I like to do. What advice would you give FSU students? The advice that I would give to FSU students is advice that I also would give to one of my colleagues or myself. Never doubt your abilities. Never think that you can't do something. You can achieve your own goals. All of us in academics, as we pursue a career, or even if we're living a particular career, we sometimes doubt ourselves. We get this idea of imposter syndrome. “Oh, we're not good enough for this,” or “I haven't written this in such a good way,” or “Is this ready for publication?” or “Can I turn this paper in?” I think that we beat ourselves up a little bit and doubt ourselves. I would say that that's part of life, and all of us do it, and so it's OK to make mistakes. And the other thing I would say is reach out to your faculty. Talk to them. The people who I probably have been the closest with and have the most interesting conversations with here have been students for the whole 10 years that I've been working here. You know, finding out who they are, whether it's the criminology majors or the sociology majors, or, more recently, a lot of the ASL majors who have been taking my cultural anthropology class. I really learn a lot from them. So talk to your professors. They won't bite your head off. They'll probably want to hear from you, too.