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Katherine Ryker is a facilitator for the Peer Observation Training for Faculty program offered through the CTE. She has been teaching at USC since 2018, previously teaching for Eastern Michigan University (a teaching-focused liberal arts college) and Durham Public Schools in North Carolina. Ryker earned her secondary teaching license at the same time as her B.S. degree in geology. After earning her M.S. in geology, she went on to merge her teaching and geologic loves in the field of discipline-based education research (DBER) with a PhD in geoscience education research.

Students know her as invested in their success, curiosity-driven, and approachable. Faculty know her as "that professor whose students can get really animated about rocks." She's a recipient of the Garnet Apple and Mungo Undergraduate Teaching Awards as well as a fellow of the Geological Society of America and a Distinguished Lecturer for the American Geophysical Union based on her strengths in education. Her classroom is always open to guests.