Graduate Student Spotlight: Samantha Wald
PRIME is excited to welcome first-year student Samantha Wald to the mathematics education
doctoral program! Samantha is originally from Buffalo, New York but she has also lived
in Arlington, Virginia.
Before coming to PRIME, Samantha taught high school mathematics for seven years, as
well as precalculus at a community college. She completed her undergraduate degree
at SUNY Oswego and her master’s degree at James Madison University. Samantha shared
a couple of family photos, at right.
A fun fact about Samantha is that she played ice hockey for six years. Also, from
4th grade to the end of 12th grade she played the flute. In her free time now, she
loves to read, go on walks, workout, and hang out with friends.
During her time here at PRIME, Samantha hopes to further her interest in how culturally
responsive teaching and equity-based practices impact the student-teacher and student-student
relationship and how that affects motivation and classroom performance.
After graduating from PRIME, she hopes to become a secondary mathematics methods professor, and potentially teach developmental mathematics as well.
We wish her the best of luck during her time here at PRIME, and hope she has a wonderful year!
Written by
Ansley Duke
