TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

My success as a biologist stems largely from early exposure to scientific research and research mentors. In my first research position, I remember eagerly working to understand the rationale behind our experimental design, working collaboratively to troubleshoot protocols when we weren’t obtaining data, and the satisfaction of getting to analyze my first data set and see patterns in the results. The experience of engaging with the complete scientific method gave me an enthusiasm for inquiry that made learning seem second nature.  This experience heavily influenced my teaching philosophy.  As an educator and a biologist, I believe it is my responsibility to instill my students with the same enthusiasm, confidence, and skill set that experience with scientific research gave me. I aim to do so through inquiry-driven hands on research and learning, whereby students learn fundamental concepts through collaborative hypothesis forming, experimental design, and testing, while gaining marketable skills and confidence in their critical thinking and communication abilities. I am excited to develop and teach classes that are both research and lecture based, relying heavily on primary literature and student-led activities, with the ultimate goal of increasing scientific literacy and innovative thinking.  I will also leverage my research program to create opportunities for students to pursue independent research throughout their undergraduate careers.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Throughout my biology career, I have taken an active role in creating and implementing research-based curriculum for undergraduate students in the biological sciences. For two consecutive summers, alongside Dr. Alison Pischedda, I implemented a two-week module for an immersive molecular bioscience summer course. This course consisted of both lecture and laboratory components. The laboratory component was based on my own dissertation research. During this summer course, students collected and analyzed data in real time, the results of which contributed significantly to a chapter of my dissertation. A publication using data the students collected was recently published in G3: https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.119.400780.
           
​Following this experience, I sought funding via an internal Instructional Improvement Grant to design and implement my own research-based curriculum: a multi-week experimental evolution exercise in UCSB’s introductory biology lab series. The goal of this exercise is to address common misconceptions about the tempo, mode, and outcomes of natural selection and genetic drift, all while familiarizing students with a common laboratory model (Drosophila). Over the course of one academic quarter, students evolve populations of Drosophila that are polymorphic for the w- allele, which when homozygous, causes a white-eyed phenotype (rather than red). Students observe the change in eye-color phenotype from generation to generation, and calculate allele frequency changes from this data. Using their data, students test hypotheses regarding the effect of population size and the strength of selection on evolutionary outcomes. We used pre and post-exercise surveys to assess the success of this active learning exercise in achieving the proposed student learning outcomes. To implement this exercise for over 1000 students, I worked closely with a small organizing team to manage the experiment in addition to over twenty teaching assistants. Ultimately, this experiment was permanently adopted by the department and is in its fourth year of implementation.
          
I have significant experience as a TA for a variety of evolution and ecology lecture-based courses, including: “Molecular evolution”, “Population genetics”, “Principles of evolution”, and “Origins of Biological Diversity”. In particular, I have worked closely with my advisor, Dr. Thomas Turner, while he developed a new course, “Population Genetics”. During this course, I consulted with Dr. Turner about the scope of the material, the best ways to demonstrate concepts, traditionally difficult topics for students and how to handle them, and how to best test student achievement of our stated student learning objectives. In assisting and observing him, I learned a lot about how to successfully structure an evidence-based lecture course.
           
I have used what I’ve learned from my experiences developing both laboratory and lecture curriculum to develop my own lecture-based course: “Evolution and physiology for brain science majors.” This is an introductory level biology course I offered for the first time to several majors in the Psychology department at UCSB. The class uses primary literature to demonstrate key concepts of evolution and physiology, while focusing on nervous system development, function, and behavior. Although the enrollment in this class exceeds 200 students, I implement active learning strategies through small working group classroom simulations and activities to encourage collaborative inquiry and problem solving. Students review my course highly and perform well when assessed on key concepts. I have continued to implement these strategies as instructor for an upper division course, “Principles of Evolution,” and in a special interest non-majors course on human population genetics.

MENTORING IN RESEARCH

Throughout my graduate training, I have mentored a handful of undergraduate students. Each of these students assisted me in the execution of my dissertation research. During their tenure in our lab, my research assistants and I read and discussed the relevant primary literature from which I draw the basis for formulating and testing my hypotheses. As we collected data, I lead students through the analysis, interpretation, and presentation of our results while encouraging independent lines of inquiry based on our findings. Several of these students completed independent senior theses and are now graduate students pursuing their own careers in biology.