Sara Nasrollahian joined the Center for Teaching as an assistant director in 2019 and was promoted to associate director in 2023. Sara leads the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) program in the Center for Teaching, which supports faculty members to engage in systemic and purposeful inquiry into students’ learning in order to improve teaching. In 2024, with the support of the P3 Strategic Initiatives Fund, she launched the SoTL Scholars program, which aims to empower faculty to design and conduct SoTL studies. Sara co-leads the Course Design Institute, an annual program for faculty interested in learning how to (re)design their courses. Sara serves as an expert liaison for several Center for Teaching faculty communities, including groups focused on SoTL, evidence-based assessment and grading strategies, cognitive support for student learning, and community-engaged teaching and research. She also supports faculty through one-on-one consultations and pedagogical workshops and retreats. 

Sara is an active collaborator on several strategic campus initiatives, including Closing the Gap: Experiential Education for All Undergraduates at Iowa, Excellence in Teaching and Learning: Developing a Set of Effective Strategies for Course and Curriculum Innovation, and Learning at Iowa. Sara works closely with the Office of Community Engagement to support faculty designing community-engaged courses. 

Sara’s scholarship focuses on transdisciplinarity in SoTL, learning complexities in pedagogical contexts, transparency in teaching and learning, and adult learning experience. Her work has appeared in the journals To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, Transformative Dialogues: Teaching and Learning Journal, Adult Learning, and the edited volume Transparent Design in Higher Education Teaching and Leadership.

Sara serves on multiple International Society of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) conference executive committees. She is also an elected member of the board of directors (Core Committee) of the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education, and is the Core liaison to the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SOTL) Special Interest Group. Sara was also a founding member of the POD Immigrant Affinity Group.  

An expert in qualitative research and adult learning, Sara is an adjunct instructor in the Learning Sciences and Educational Psychology Program at the College of Education where she teaches educational psychology.