I embrace a teaching style of “high expectations and high support,” which stems from several years of teaching and curriculum development experience across diverse populations and contexts before starting my PhD. This includes underserved high school students in West Philadelphia and the Bay Area and college-going North Korean defectors in Seoul.

My teaching is designed with the following goals in mind:

  1. Cultivate critical reading, writing, and thinking skills

  2. Train students to apply theoretical class concepts to the world around them

  3. Create a communal, equitable space where students can productively learn and challenge themselves and each other

In 2024, I received the Penn Prize for Teaching Excellence, awarded annually to ten graduate students across the university.

Teaching Experience

University of Pennsylvania

Teaching Assistant

  • Introduction to Sociological Research Methods, Professor Courtney Boen (Spring 2024)

  • Introduction to Sociology, Professor Ben Shestakofsky (Fall 2022, Spring 2023)

Student Feedback

  • “Joyce was an amazing TA! She was incredibly helpful in answering questions, appropriately accessible outside of class time, and always put in the time to offer feedback on my writing. She was also incredibly organized, providing us with a recap of recitation through our emails each week after our class. Joyce is a wonderful teacher and I hope I can take a class with her as a TA again!”

    "Joyce is the best! She truly enhanced our learning of sociological research and was very responsive and accessible outside of class. I would highly recommend her as a TA to my peers - she taught me so much."

    "She did an amazing job helping me form a thoughtful research question and has helped me troubleshoot any obstacle I have encountered when going through the assignments."

  • “The impact she had on my peers and me in her class is profound. She did not just teach us sociology - she taught us how to understand ourselves and our identities in relation to overarching structural systems. Joyce didn’t just teach me concepts – she taught me how to recognize structural barriers that I had internalized, and, by extension, how to advocate for myself and others.”

    “Joyce was an outstanding TA. She knew the material, was flexible on assignments, and was overall a very engaging and inspiring TA - top at Penn.”

    “Joyce did a wonderful job as TA! I really enjoyed having the 'Sociology in Action' presentations and learning more about how my classmates internalize the lecture material. I also really appreciate how passionate Joyce is about sociology, and how she conducted respectful and thought-provoking class discussions. She was a joy to be around and really engaged us all! “

    "Joyce was an incredible TA, and I truly enjoyed having the opportunity to work with her semester. Each week, she came prepared to reinforce lecture material and answer questions. Her weekly recap emails and her knowledge in the field was helpful. I felt comfortable asking her questions about not only the class material, but also about her academic experience at Penn and beyond."