Lauren D'Innocenzo Wins Course Hero-Woodrow Wilson Fellowship

Lauren D’Innocenzo, assistant professor of management, received a Course Hero-Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching.

This newly created fellowship comes with $40,000 to support the engagement of a graduate assistant to help with a variety of research projects for one year, as well as creating new opportunities for classroom innovations.

D’Innocenzo, who is teaching undergraduate students as well as in the MBA, Executive MBA and Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) programs during fall quarter, says she aims to have a PhD student help her develop a new feedback system for her students.

“The fellowship will allow me to find someone to look into ways of automating this process,” she says. “With all the behind-the-scenes stuff I do taken care of, that will free me up to do so many things. It’s going to be an incredible time saver.”

D’Innocenzo also plans to have the student join her in observing students and assessing their performance in team-based work: “Having more eyes in the room can be really help to provide students with-real time feedback on how they can improve their process.”

Created by Course Hero, an online library of study materials, and administered by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the Excellence in Teaching Fellowship is designed as a “genius grant,” emphasizing balance between high-level scholarly pursuits and outstanding undergraduate teaching practice. All of this year’s Fellows are tenure-track faculty either in the arts and sciences or in a business school who have successfully completed their institutional review at the midpoint of their progress. D’Innocenzo and the other fellows provided evidence of excellence and innovation in teaching at the undergraduate level, as well as of outstanding progress in developing a research dossier for tenure.

Because she studies teams and how they function and perform, D’Innocenzo says, “I know I can never be successful just by myself. I rely on other people around me for data access, writing a proposal or new ideas in the classroom.”

“I love teaching and engaging in high-level research on these interesting projects,” she says. “Having this support really helps build that up.”