Kathy Takayama

Biography

Kathy is the founding Director of the Center for Inclusive Excellence in Teaching (CIET). Since her arrival in 2025, she has developed faculty- and department-driven interdisciplinary programs for inclusive, evidence-based pedagogy and curricular design, and works closely with faculty to support their teaching interests and scholarship of teaching and learning. She has established CIET’s inaugural Students-as-Partners program, a values-centered approach that interweaves faculty and students’ experiences and insights through ongoing critical, collaborative reflection, to redesign courses and foster meaningful, transformative learning.

Kathy earned her doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology from Rutgers Medical School and her bachelor’s degree in biology from MIT. Kathy's collaborations across the disciplines to engage in teaching as critical inquiry led to her work in the scholarship of teaching and learning as a Carnegie Scholar with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For over 25 years she has developed programs and initiatives to cultivate student-centered, equity-minded educational environments for a wide range of higher education institutions across the world. A founding member and former president of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Kathy has continued to collaborate with scholars and practitioners across the disciplines.