Meet Three Trinity Constellations Faculty
The First-Year Experience in Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, designed to foster community among students, includes the longstanding FOCUS program and new Constellations cohorts. Students are encouraged to think creatively and outside of the box as they explore important and timely questions through interconnected courses.
There are 16 Constellations offered in the 2025-2026 academic year. We spoke with faculty teaching courses in three different Constellations as they prepare for the semester.
Dan Scolnic
Daniel Scolnic, associate professor of Physics, will be teaching Intro to Astronomy as part of the What is the Cosmos? Constellation.
Scolnic’s love for physics began when he read a quote from Einstein: “Time is a dimension in space.” From that moment on, he was hooked. He’s looking forward to sharing his enthusiasm with students in his Constellation, fostering an atmosphere that will inspire them to think deeply.
“What I like about the First-Year Experience is that it gets students to think about a question from many different angles,” he said.
Miranda Welsh
Miranda Welsh, lecturing fellow in the Thompson Writing Program, is teaching WRITING120: Preventing Pandemics: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Preparedness, part of the How Do Humans Understand Life, Death, and the In-Between? Constellation.
Welsh’s research focuses on disease ecology, a field that examines how environmental and evolutionary forces affect pathogen/host relationships. The students in her classes often haven’t had a lot of experience with academic science writing, but Welsh encourages them to explore connections between the sciences and the humanities.
Kristin Stephens-Martinez
Kristin Stephens-Martinez, associate professor of the practice in Computer Science is teaching COMPSCI171: Learning How to Learn with AI, part of the Constellation How Does Artificial Intelligence Impact Human Experiences?
In the classroom, Stephens-Martinez is a big advocate for understanding why something is correct, not just finding the correct answer. It may sound counterintuitive, but she believes that wrong answers give more information.
“I’m genuinely curious to understand where students currently are because if I can’t understand that, I can’t figure out how to get them to where I want them to be,” she said.
