Five faculty received Steinhardt’s 2022-2023 Teaching Excellence Award, which honors outstanding teaching effectiveness both in and out of the classroom. Nominees for the Award must display an innovative pedagogical approach that fosters rigorous, creative, and engaging lessons to sustain students’ intellectual development and independent inquiry.
Ramin Amir Arjomand
Music Adjunct Faculty
Ramin Amir Arjomand is an Iranian American composer, pianist, improviser, conductor, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. His music has been commissioned and/or performed by Speculum Musicae, So Percussion Ensemble, the New York Virtuoso Singers, the Cassatt Quartet, TAK Ensemble, the Columbia Collegium Musicum, and numerous independent ensembles and soloists in venues throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. A highly sought-after teacher, he has taught Theory, Aural Comprehension, and Composition.
María Rosa Brea
Clinical Associate Professor of Communicative Sciences and Disorders; Director of the Bilingual Extension Track
María Rosa Brea is a Dominican, an immigrant, a bilingual (Español and English) speaker, and a critical teacher-scholar-activist whose work has been centered at the intersection of multilingualism and disability. She teaches about and implements culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogical practices in her courses, as part of her overarching commitments to critical inquiry, reflexive praxis, and the redistribution of power in classroom spaces. Her dedication to student-centered teaching, social justice activism, and community engagement has received multiple accolades.
Kelly Bridges
Clinical Assistant Professor of Communicative Sciences and Disorders; Director of Distance Education
Kelly Bridges integrates both clinical and research experience in her pedagogy, teaching undergraduate and graduate students on campus and online through Speech@NYU, the online modality of the MS program. Her specific areas of clinical and teaching interest include neuroanatomy and physiology, adult neurogenic communication disorders, anatomy and physiology of speech and swallowing, and dysphagia. As an ASHA-certified and licensed clinician in New York and New Jersey, she remains clinically active through per diem work in skilled nursing facilities, evaluating and treating adult and geriatric residents with communicative and swallowing impairments.
Nisha Sajnani
Associate Professor and Director of Drama Therapy
Nisha Sajnani is the Director of the Theatre & Health Lab and founding Co-Director of Arts & Health @NYU. She is a faculty advisor in the Rehabilitation Sciences and Educational Theatre programs, and co-teaches Improvisation and Leadership in the Management Communication Program at NYU Stern. An award-winning author, educator, and advocate, her body of work explores the unique ways in which aesthetic experience can inspire care and collective human flourishing across the lifespan.
Carolyn Strom
Clinical Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Literacy
Carolyn Strom is a teacher educator and classroom researcher whose work focuses on improving early literacy outcomes and reading experiences for young children. She collaborates widely with teachers, school districts, and curriculum developers; currently, she is leading an initiative for New York City preschool teachers called Cortex2Classroom, which centers on the practical application of reading science and learning technologies in early childhood. As a state-certified reading specialist and former public elementary school teacher, Strom maintains a clinical practice where she works with children who have dyslexia and related reading difficulties.
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