Teaching

I will be the economics department's Head Teaching Assistant in AY 2026–27. The Head TA manages more than 20 undergraduate and graduate TAs who collectively teach about 1,500 students enrolled in Principles of Economics. The Head TA also coordinates with 3 faculty members, teaches lectures and review sessions for all students, and leads a small discussion section. 

I am not a Macroeconomist, but I've grown passionate about teaching Macro. It has made me a much more well-rounded economic thinker. I came into the PhD with zero experience with Macro models and built my understanding of the subject from the ground up. I think this is an asset for teaching: I can help students build their economic intuition and model-solving skills without assuming they have prior background in the subject.  Below I include some resources that I use in my PhD-level Macro exam prep course.

• Log-linearization cheat sheet

Selected student comments (Fall 2025):

• Kate should get a best TA award if one exists! Absolutely brilliant as an instructor.

• I thought that the TA sections were informative and helpful. There were multiple times this semester where I didn't understand something until it was explained in the TA section.

• Overall, I thought that the TA sections for this class were the most helpful of any class I took this semester. Kate did a good job of teaching as well as providing context on when we would use the material in our economics courses.

• Kate encouraged questions and class participation and was extremely friendly and welcoming to the incoming PhD cohort. She also repeatedly gave us great advice on the first year in general and was an excellent resource for starting in the program! Couldn't have asked for a better TA.

• She is an excellent teacher. Super organized and always sure of what she is doing.

Selected student comments (Fall 2024):

• Kate did a phenomenal job holding office hours and discussion because of her preparation. It was clear that she had thought through the homework and other practice problems before presenting them to us. This helped me get more from the discussions and office hours. 

• Kate left did a great job fostering an environment that allowed questions, disagreement, and creative problem–solving. I remember overhearing her in office hours discussion a proof with a student. The student was approaching the problem differently from Kate and instructor–provided solutions, but she helped the student with their alternative, but correct, approach instead of advising them to do it another way.

• Kate is a great TA, loved having her guide us through the course; on how to approach questions. She went beyond the classroom and gave us tips to manage the first year workload as well. 

Selected student comments (Spring 2026):

• Katherine was an amazing TA and she did a great job steering discussion in a productive way, answering our questions, and going through all the crucial topics in an engaging and understandable way.

• Overall this discussion was extremely beneficial for my learning and understanding in this course. I really enjoyed the way she spent time explaining every step in the derivations and how lots of the equations interact with each other.

• Much of the information I learned from this class was specifically during the discussions. It was really great to go over everything we learned during the lecture through the discussions.

• The written out notes [and] discussions were super helpful and office hours were super amazing.

• Kate is a great TA, and she's the only reason I understood some of the concepts in this course.

Selected student comments (Spring 2025):

• TA was very helpful at breaking down complicated concepts into easily understandable bits. She was also good about not just regurgitating the textbook or Prof., presenting material in a new perspective, which was very helpful. She honestly was one if the best econ TA's I've had at UVA. She took time to break down the concepts and then she would apply it to a problem, which was the most helpful thing throughout this entire course. 

• The TA discussions helped with both the problem sets and learning the course material and I took a lot away from these sections. 

• The TA was very helpful as an add on to lecture. Many topics in lecture were more clearly explained in discussion. 

• She did a phenomenal job and made my experience in this course much more enjoyable and successful! It was well worth it to wake up on Friday @ 8am.