Prior to joining Olin, Dr. Zastavker was a visiting assistant professor of Physics at Wellesley College where she taught physics and performed biophysics research. Born and raised in Kiev, Ukraine, she came to the United States in 1990 having received two years of ducation at the Kiev Pedagogical College and a degree from one of Kiev 's Schools of Music. She graduated from Yale University with a B.S. in physics and holds a Ph.D. in biological physics from MIT.
Dr. Zastavker's research involves understanding innovative pedagogical and curricular practices in STEM courses, with specific emphasis on the issues of gender and diversity. Dr. Zastavker is currently involved in an NSF-supported project to understand students’ motivational attitudes in a variety of educational environments with the goal of improving learning opportunities for students and equipping faculty with the knowledge and skills necessary to create such opportunities. This work is integrated with Dr. Zastavker’s efforts to understand the ways in which such environments may be supported by critically reflective practices and how these environments serve to induct engineering students into educational careers.
One of the founding faculty at Olin College, Dr. Zastavker has been engaged in development and implementation of project-based experiences in fields ranging from science to engineering and design to social sciences. As well, Dr. Zastavker is a founding Director of Olin College Grand Challenge Scholars Program (GCSP) and serves on the NAE’s GCSP steering committee. All of these activities share a common goal of creating curricular and pedagogical structures as well as academic cultures that facilitate students' interests, motivation, and desire to persist in engineering. Through this work, outreach, and involvement in the community, Dr. Zastavker continues to focus on the issues of women and minorities in science/engineering.
