"I have had the pleasure of working with Saara-Maria Kauppi at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Saara was teaching the Visual Communications course at the Department of Design, and I employed as an university lecturer to assist Saara with the class lectures, student feedback sessions, grading and final examinations. Saara and I worked well together, I experienced it more as a team effort and Saara was the leader with the final decisions. She was great at giving me room to give input and allowing me to take initiative on some tasks, especially the lectures for the class. This was empowering, as it was good to be able to use my creativity to express myself in the lectures, and I feel this made my lectures more impactful for the students. She was also very good as a colleague and showed both empathy and also was willing to lead. She lead well by keeping everyone on track and making sure we had the resources we needed to complete our tasks. I worked with her for three semesters, and the last semester we had 1,000 students enrolled in the class, which was a challenge. The whole team managed it well, since Saara was good at leading, coordinating, delegating and was open to suggestions for improvement. Saara is someone I feel I could rely on and come to if I needed help in the work environment. I would recommend her for most positions as she is very capable, a good and fast learner and is very adaptable to new situations."
"I worked with Saara as her assistant while she organized and lectured in TPD4114 at NTNU. In the period Saara organized the course I watched it grow from a small, niche course to one of the largest in the design department, while maintaining an excellent rating among students. One specific facet I would like to draw attention to was her ability to be a pragmatic problem solver: I witnessed first-hand how she expertly handled the stressful challenge of managing a severely understaffed course without compromising its quality. In addition to this, she is easy to work with, and a lecturer who served to inspire me personally during my time as a student in her course (prior to taking on the role as her assistant)."