Teaching & Mentoring Philosophy
I enjoy teaching because I enjoy a challenge, and I believe that guiding students as they learn how to confront (and enjoy!) new intellectual challenges should be my central role as an educator. As a research mentor, I strive to recruit students from diverse backgrounds and create laboratory experiences that inspire them to learn new things about themselves and the world around them. I believe that laboratory research can provide a fantastic opportunity to try and fail and try again, to learn how to navigate obstacles and work as a community of scholars to advance human understanding.
developmental biology @ southwestern
In this course, students will explore early vertebrate development through the lens of adaptive self-organization. Students will also consider the relationship between development and evolution. In the laboratory, students will simulate the process of starting up their own developmental biology research groups.
neurobiology @ Southwestern
In this course, students build a framework for thinking about neurobiology, while strengthening fundamental skills in scientific thinking: critical analysis of primary literature, and conceptualizing experiments to answer a scientific question.
explorations in biology @ southwestern
Science is a uniquely powerful source of information about the natural world, but it can be challenging to evaluate scientific findings and apply them judiciously to complex and potentially controversial questions. In this course, students will use neurobiology to develop skills in evaluating and applying scientific information.
Frontiers in Neuroscience @ cornell
Using primary literature, presentations, and group activities, students learned about innovative technical approaches to neuroscience - their strengths and their weaknesses - and how these approaches are being used to advance scientific understanding.
Course Syllabus
training in science communication & outreach
Invited participant, ComSciCon Cornell (2015)
Community outreach program at the St. Louis Science Center (2007-08), as part of a Cognitive, Computational & Systems Neuroscience IGERT training grant