Email: staraban@uwaterloo.ca
Office: EC3 2011
Pronouns: she/her/hers
As Senior Educational Developer, Graduate Programs & Internationalization, Dr. Svitlana Taraban-Gordon works with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and supervises graduate-student staff who contribute to the work of CTE. Her primary role is coordinating teaching certificate programs for graduate students, including the Fundamentals of University Teaching and the Certificate in University Teaching.
Svitlana also supervises a team of ten graduate students who work at CTE as graduate instructional developers and TA workshop facilitators.
Prior to joining CTE, Svitlana taught various courses and worked on internationalization projects at York University’s Faculty of Education where she was pursuing a doctorate in Education. She received her PhD in 2006.
Svitlana speaks three languages and is the Board member at the Focus for Ethnic Women. Outside of work, Svitlana enjoys walking, biking and traveling the world with her husband and young son.
Selected professional highlights
- External examiner. Eva Peisachovich, Exploring the experiences and understanding of clinical judgment of internationally education nurses (IENs) transitioning to nursing practices. PhD thesis. Faculty of Education. York University.
- External examiner. Karine Rashkovsky, Unpacking Ontario’s character development policy initiative: Character education in social context. PhD thesis. Faculty of Education. York University.
- Instructor of the online course, Intercultural Skills (offered every term since Fall 2012). Waterloo Professional Development program (WatPD).
Publications
- Taraban-Gordon, S., Trilokekar, R. & Fynbo, T. (2009). Beyond intellectual tourism and global market competencies: Student interns reflections on learning in global spaces. In R. D. Trilokekar, G. Jones, & A. Shubert (Eds.), “Canada’s universities go global.” Toronto: Lorimer.
Grants and awards
- Recipient, with Mark Morton, of a WatCACE Grant for a research project on challenges facing international students in Waterloo's Co-op Program. ($13,000)
- Recipient of the ELITE scholarship for dissertation research in Germany
- Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) recipient
Other
- Reviewer for the Journal of International Students
- Visiting Professor at the International Summer University in Macedonia, 2006
- Visiting Fellow at the Academy for Migration Studies at Aalborg University, Denmark, 2003