Aparna Bhar
Before starting at TUM Language Center in 2015, Aparna Bhar taught at various universities including Universities of Bayreuth and Trier. She holds degrees in Zoology, Literature (German and Anglophone), Media and Cultural Studies and incorporates this extensive experience of academia in her teaching of English for Academic Purposes. Her current focus is on developing teaching materials suited to international learners, as she coordinates the Gateway to English Master’s program at the TUM.
Jena Balton-Stier
Jena Balton-Stier is a native of Memphis, TN. Post her graduate studies in Chicago, Jena relocated to Germany in 2009 and began teaching at many of the Bavarian Universities alongside working as a freelance editor and guide for creative industries. In 2014, she started to teach at TUM, joining the English team permanently in 2019.
Ross Clark
Ross began teaching English in 2005, while working as a British Council language assistant in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Since 2007 he has lived and worked in Munich and has taught technical English, business English, academic English, and preparation courses for Cambridge, TOEFL, and TOEIC exams. At TUM Ross teaches a variety of classes and is responsible for field-specific Gateway to English Master’s programmes including English for Environmental Engineering, English for Civil Engineering, and English for Geodesy.
Kate Eden
Before retraining in language teaching, Kate studied, qualified and worked as an architect in the UK, Singapore and Germany. She joined the TUM Language Center in 2011 and focuses on vocational English for architecture and landscape, English coaching and DAAD testing.
Karl Hughes
Karl has worked at the TUM Sprachenzentrum since 2010. His academic background is in philosophy and applied linguistics. He has lived and worked in various countries specializing in English for Academic Purposes since 1993. He currently teaches academic writing, pronunciation, and intercultural communication as well as coordinating delivery of the English Coaching Program at TUM.
Rose Jacobs
Rose joined the TUM Language Center in 2013. She has worked as a business journalist for more than a decade, including as a reporter and editor for the Financial Times in London and New York, and continues to publish in the FT, the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. Her degree is in comparative literature and she earned her CELTA certificate in Munich in 2013.
Jennifer Ritter
Jennifer Dozier Ritter started teaching English after she relocated to Germany in 2006. While earning her graduate degree in Communication at Illinois State University, she started teaching Communication courses at Illinois State University. After graduate school, she returned to Germany and taught English language courses at the University of Regensburg in addition to teaching freelance communication courses and professional training and coaching. In 2015 she moved from the University of Regensburg to the Straubing Center of Science, which became the TUM Campus Straubing. She worked as a freelance instructor until October 2020 when she started her current position. She teaches a variety of courses and coordinates the language courses for the Straubing campus.
Teresa Schenk
Teresa was born in Germany, but moved to Durham, England when she was five and fell in love with the English language, literature, culture and people. Ten years later, she moved back to Germany and finished school before starting her studies in teaching (with English, social studies and ethics as her subjects). She has previously worked as a linguistics tutor and became a lecturer in the TUM Language Center in 2021. She currently teaches academic writing, English for Academic Purposes and Pronunciation.
Tina Schrier
Tina joined the TUM Language Center in 2010. Her English degrees are in comparative literature. She earned her Bachelor's degree at Northern Michigan University in 1989 and her Master's at the University of Texas at Arlington in 1991, and worked on her PhD at Southern Illinois University until 1994. She has taught Academic English in the United States, Canada, Germany, and Dubai. She has contributed to Countryside magazine and won the A Woman's Write Award in the category "Work in Progress" in 2008.
Madeleine Stapel
Maddy started teaching English in 1998, when she was in the Japan Education and Teaching Programme in Nagano, Japan. After earning degrees in Japanese literature and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, she worked with low-income students in the Brooklyn Public Schools. She has been living and teaching business English in the Munich area since 2011, and has been part of the Language Center team since 2015, leading medical English courses at KRI and working in the English Writing Center.
Stephen Starck
Stephen has taught business English at companies around Munich since 2001 and joined TUM in 2011. With a doctorate in English Language and Literature / Cultural Studies, he is interested in science and technology, architecture and urban planning, ancient and modern rhetoric, and more. At TUM he has particularly specialized in writing – essays, theses and dissertations (School of Management, Mathematics, Chemistry, Electrical Engineering and others) – and in business English for engineers.
Natasha Wellershausen
Natasha was born and raised in South Africa and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and linguistics from the University of South Africa while working as a teacher of English as a foreign language in language schools in Cape Town. Through her studies and experience teaching international students, she discovered her passion for language learning and teaching, leading her to pursue a master’s degree in Research on Teaching and Learning at the TUM School of Education. Since completing the master’s degree, she has continued to work at the TUM Sprachenzentrum and Hochschule München as an English instructor, with a focus on grammar, academic, and technical writing.