There is an entire team behind the Academy for Teaching and Learning Excellence: 3 co-directors and 2 graduate students. Find out more about them below.
Co-Directors
A. Naeem Bajwa
(pronouns: he/him/his)
Co-director since 2023
Dr. Bajwa is an Associate Professor of Management in the Department of Management, Marketing, and Technology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Dr. Bajwa holds a Ph.D. in Operations and Management from The University of Alabama. He has been a faculty member at UA Little Rock since 2013. Prior to this, he worked in the industry in a variety of roles including senior leadership positions in project management, supply chain planning, and management consulting a wide range of industries. He brings with him a breadth of professional experience in planning, manufacturing, and customer service.
His research focuses on cross-functional interfaces between Operations and Marketing functions within an organization. His teaching interests include Production and Operations Management, Supply Chain Management, Negotiation Skills, and Business Strategy. He is an active member of various professional and academic organizations and volunteers in social work.
Dr. Bajwa received the College of Business Research Excellence Award in 2019. He has also received multiple Student Advocate Awards, and the Teaching Fellow Certificate at UA Little Rock.
He is passionately involved in hiking, running, traveling, and the financial markets.
Dr. Bajwa joined ATLE as a co-director in the spring of 2023, and will complete his three-year term in the spring of 2025.
Contact Dr. Bajwa: (501) 916-6759 anbajwa@ualr.edu
Neveen Shafeek Amin
(pronouns: she/her/hers)
Co-director since 2023
Dr. Neveen Shafeek Amin is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the School of Human Inquiry at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. She has been a faculty member at UA Little Rock since 2015. She is affiliated with the Middle Eastern Studies Program (MEST) at UA Little Rock and served as the Coordinator of the Middle Eastern Studies Program from 2020-2022.
Dr. Shafeek Amin holds core research interests in migration, gender, race/ethnicity, mental health, healthcare utilization, sleep, food insecurity, and health disparities/outcomes in the United States. A dominant theme throughout her work is attention to social and cultural influences on population health and well-being. Dr. Shafeek Amin is proud to be counted among the limited number of sociologists/scholars who focus on the experiences of the Middle Eastern origin population in the United States. Her research has been published in Ethnicity and Health Journal, Journal of Child and Family Studies (JCFS), the International Journal of Sociology (IJS), Journal of Family and Community Health (JFCH), and International Social Science Review (ISSR).
Dr. Shafeek Amin has participated in a countless number of professional development workshops and trainings and has received numerous honors and awards in research and teaching. These include the Pilot Jumpstart Program for Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works (2021), College of Social Sciences and Communication (CSSC) Service-Learning Champion Award (2020), Scientific Teaching Fellow (2019-2020), CSSC Summer Research Grant (2019), CSSC Research and Creative Activity Fund/Grant (2018 & 2019), Student Advocate Awards (2018), CSSC Faculty Mentor of the Year Award (2017), Open Educational Recourses (OER) Mini-Grant (2017), and Curriculum Innovation Award (2016). She was also nominated for College of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, and Education (CHASSE) Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching.
In addition, she was named the Lifetime Participant, Master Teacher, Distinguished Teaching Fellow, and Teaching Fellow Medallion recipient by the Academy for Teaching and Learning Excellence (ATLE).
She is an active member of various professional and academic organizations. She served as the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect of Arkansas Sociological and Anthropological Association (ASAA), from 2018-2020 and the Faculty Sponsor of the Sociology club at UA Little Rock from 2015-2022.
In her free time, she likes to read, travel, and cook.
Dr. Shafeek Amin joined ATLE as a co-director in the fall of 2023, and will complete her three-year term in the spring of 2026.
Contact Dr. Shafeek Amin (501) 916-5058 nxshafeekam@ualr.edu
Graduate Assistants
Nusrat Jahan
(she/her)
Saima Parveen
(she/her)
