Erica Bender, Ph.D., is an Assessment Specialist in the Learning, Teaching, and Assessment team in the Office of Undergraduate Education at UC Davis. Erica helps develop and facilitate team-based assessment coaching programs as well as assessment-related programming and resources for individual faculty and co-curricular practitioners. She brings optimism and empathy to her work, grounded in the belief that assessment can generate curiosity, build community, provide opportunities for productive discomfort, and reconnect higher education professionals with the deep fascination that motivates their work. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from UC San Diego in 2018, where her research focused on the organizational and institutional intersections of the military, the nonprofit sector, education, and veteran-focused social services.