Sara Nasrollahian joined the Center for Teaching as an assistant director in spring 2019 and was promoted to associate director in spring 2023. Sara leads the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) initiative in the Center for Teaching, which supports faculty members to engage in systemic and purposeful inquiry into students’ learning in order to improve teaching. She also co-leads the Course Design Institute, an annual program for faculty interested in learning how to (re)design their courses. Sara serves as liaison for several Center for Teaching faculty communities around pedagogical topics and initiatives, including groups focused on SoTL, Transparent Assignment Design, and Equitable Assessment Strategies. She also supports faculty through one-on-one consultations and pedagogical workshops. 

Sara is a long-time member of the University of Iowa Provost’s Task Force on First-Generation College Students and the First-Year Seminar Advisory Board. She also collaborates with several P3 projects, including Closing the Gap: Experiential Education for All Undergraduates at Iowa, Excellence in Teaching and Learning: Developing a Set of Effective Strategies for Course and Curriculum Innovation, and Learning at Iowa. Sara works closely with the Office of Community Engagement to support faculty designing community engaged courses. 

Sara’s interest and expertise in fostering transparency in teaching and learning have inspired several collaborative scholarly initiatives and publications, and she frequently gives keynotes on transparent assignment design and SoTL. Her work has appeared in the journals To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development and Adult Learning, as well as in the edited volume Transparent Design in Higher Education Teaching and Leadership.

Sara is an active member of the International Society of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) and serves on multiple ISSOTL conference executive committees. She is also an active member of the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education’s Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SOTL) Special Interest Group and a founding member of the POD Immigrant Affinity Group. 

An expert in qualitative research and adult learning, Sara is also an adjunct lecturer in the Learning Sciences and Educational Psychology Program at the College of Education where she teaches Educational Psychology.