Cultivating the next generation of public health professionals is important to me.
I am a part-time faculty member in Tufts University’s Department of Community Health. I teach Introduction to Community Health, a foundational course for Community Health majors which examines the relationships among health, health care, and community.
I teach with the understanding that the students in my classroom today may someday influence the practices and policies that are integral to shaping the future of public health. I view teaching as a dynamic, interactive process in which both students and instructors engage in meaningful dialogue and mutual learning. Rather than simply imparting knowledge, I strive to challenge students to think critically and reflect deeply on the course material, connecting it to their unique experiences and their future roles as public health leaders.
My teaching philosophy has been shaped by extensive experience, including my role as a teaching assistant for two undergraduate courses at the University of South Carolina, for which I received the university’s Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award in 2018.
I have also earned several teaching certifications from the University of South Carolina, including Teaching Online for Graduate Students (2022), Fostering Proactive Learning Environments (2019), Teaching Towards Inclusive Excellence (2019), and Preparing Future Faculty (2018-2019).
In Fall 2023, I further honed my pedagogical skills by completing Tufts University’s Pedagogical Partnership Program (P3), a semester-long program in which student-faculty partners work together to evolve and improve pedagogy to be more inclusive, equitable, and learner-centered. This experience reinforced my commitment to fostering an educational environment where all students can thrive and become the next generation of public health advocates and change-makers.
“Dr. Mandelbaum was a fantastic professor! She was very engaged in the material she taught and was able to bring her own experiences into her teaching, helping us to connect with the material better. She really cared about the well-being of all her students and maintained the most inclusive class environment I have been in yet at Tufts. She also put a lot of effort into giving us resources that would help us throughout our time at Tufts and beyond, as well as helping us to think about future careers that could better the world, in addition to giving us tons of resources to be involved in healthcare settings and networking opportunities!”
“The course emphasized the entanglement between public health and so many the factors of society and communities, showing how relevant community health is in our daily lives and pushing me to evaluate the systems that I am a part of, as well as getting me to think more about my intended career in healthcare.”