Tamar’s work in the center focuses on holistic support for teaching and learning through partnerships and programs with undergraduate students, graduate teaching assistants, and faculty. As part of a collaborative team, Tamar helped to design and launch P3 and HHMI funded initiatives including the TA Mentors program, which supports teaching assistants, as well as a pilot program that leverages undergraduate Students as Partners (SaP) to apply principles of universal design for learning (UDL) to increase engagement in teaching and learning at Iowa. At the University of Iowa, Tamar is a member of the First Gen Task Force, the Accessibility Support Interest Group, and the Teaching with Writing Obermann Working Group.

Tamar’s work has appeared in publications including the Journal of College Reading and Learning and she speaks frequently on language ideology in education and writing pedagogy. Her research focuses on the experiences of graduate writers and how best to support them in their academic work. Tamar’s professional interests include providing writing support across disciplines; curriculum development; working with monolingual students, staff, and faculty to create supportive educational spaces for multilingual students; and collaborating with gateway courses across departments to support and encourage teaching practices that maximize student learning. In addition, Tamar develops resources and collaborates with other offices on campus to support General Education courses.

Prior to joining the Center for Teaching, Tamar worked as a writing consultant and coordinator of the Writing Resource in the College of Education at Iowa for five years. She previously has worked as an instructor of English to speakers of other languages, a curriculum coordinator, a teaching supervisor, and a writing consultant at the University of Pittsburgh. Tamar has also taught ESL and composition courses at Duquesne University, Iowa, and Kirkwood Community College.

In addition to her work at the Center for Teaching, Tamar teaches in the departments of Rhetoric and Linguistics.