teaching

Philosophy

Education is the surest path to empowerment. My job as an instructor is to provide students with the baseline experience and access to tools necessary to empower themselves through long-term learning and independent exploration. A critical component of my teaching is in the implementation of active independent and group learning activities that foster experiential learning, broad-based critical thinking and problem-solving and experience in collaboration and communication. These skills foster a sustained connection to the material and are transferable beyond the classroom. Students will be equipped with the tools to facilitate and advance their own future learning.

Experience

Instructor

Human Evolutionary Genetics, Fall 2021

I was awarded a Bass Instructional Fellowship to design and teach an undergraduate course in my department. I taught this intermediate course in Fall 2021. The course emphasized students’ computational skills and intuition for population genetics concepts. Syllabus available here.

Guest Lecturer

Evolution, Fall 2020

I gave an invited joint guest lecture for Dr. Megan Phifer-Rixey’s introductory Evolution course at Monmouth University. I co-taught an 80-minute lecture alongside Dr. Katharine Korunes, a postdoctoral associate in the Goldberg Lab. We demonstrated how genetic ancestry information is informative about population history and adaptive evolution by discussing case studies and doing hands-on population simulations.

Teaching Assistant

Gateway to Molecular Biology, Fall 2019

In this lab-intensive introductory molecular biology course, I was the sole instructor for my laboratory section. Going beyond the topics discussed in lecture, I led students in hands-on experiments and taught the underlying biological concepts and principles. I also received peer feedback on my teaching for this course through Duke’s Teaching Triangles program, and I gained valuable insight into my strengths and weaknesses as an instructor.

Pedagogical Training

I completed the Certificate in College Teaching graduate program at Duke University. As part of this certificate, I took formal coursework in pedagogy and course design.

Formal Coursework

Fundamentals in College Teaching, Spring 2020

I learned how to design and implement active learning activities, handle contentious issues in the classroom, develop grading criteria, and lead classroom discussions. As part of the course, I reflected on and developed my philosophy as an instructor.

College Teaching & Course Design, Fall 2020

I learned how to develop student learning outcomes, choose appropriate learning activities and evaluation criteria, and communicate clear expectations to students. This course was instrumental in my design of an intermediate population genetics course and syllabus, for which I was awarded a Bass Instructor of Record fellowship (see Experience section).

Approach

I am a population genomics researcher studying how evolutionary and demographic forces shape genetic variation in natural populations Population genetics/genomics synthesizes knowledge from the fields of genetics/genomics, ecology, evolution, statistics, and (increasingly) computer programming in order to assess how and why genomes change over time. As a result, it can be difficult to introduce students to the field, and in fact, many universities do not provide introductory population genetics courses at the undergraduate level. Despite the lack of course availability, post-graduate opportunities in the field of population genetics, such as graduate school or positions in research labs, often require baseline knowledge and experience in the field. For this reason, students who go on to study population genetics often must already have hands-on research experience as an undergraduate. This is a problem—it makes the field difficult to access for students who are unaware of research opportunities or unable to commit to long-term research because of financial or personal barriers. These students often come from backgrounds that are historically underrepresented in the sciences, increasing the already stark disparity in fields like population genetics. As a population genetics and genomics instructor, I aim to combine didactic teaching of baseline theory with experiential activities and self-guided learning tools for the undergraduate level. This will provide students with the same skills they might have gained in a long-term undergraduate research experience and beyond. My aim is for my teaching to help reduce the gap in access to the field of population genetics and provide students from various academic and personal backgrounds with the rewarding ability to apply what they learn to their future endeavors.

Experiential and Group Learning

A critical component of my teaching is active independent and group learning activities that foster critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and communication. Notably, I utilize free population genetic simulation software, like SLiM, as a teaching tool for active learning activities. SLiM and other simulation softwares are used by many population genetics researchers to model realistic populations based on evolutionary theory. In my Human Evolutionary Genetics course, we will use the SLiM simulation software to explore how evolution can shape genomes over time and relate the results to the expectations of classical theoretical examples. Students will be guided through independent and group activities and will be encouraged to help one another and explore current and past research for questions about theory. Students will also participate in and lead discussions of population genetics journal articles. Throughout the course, students will work on a scaffolded group project. Students will synthesize and apply what they have learned in this course to generate a hypothesis about human evolutionary genetics, write a simulation to test their expectations, and analyze and present their results to their peers through an oral presentation. With these hands-on and self-guided learning activities, students will gain a strong foundational understanding of the relationship between evolutionary and genetic forces that contribute to population changes over time, with the skills to apply that knowledge in a research setting.

Programming Skills

I aim to equip with the tools and experience necessary for entry into positions in population genetics labs or graduate programs. In my teaching, I provide students an introduction to what is increasingly becoming an essential skill in the field of population genetics: computer programming. For example, the programming language used for SLiM is modeled on the statistical programming software, R, which is widely used across disciplines. As such, students will gain a skill that is transferable to other fields in both the hard and soft sciences. Programming also provides more general skills: critical thinking and problem solving. By the end of the course, students should be able to write their own original simulations. This process will require trial and error, testing and debugging, breaking a problem down into its component parts and solving it piece by piece, and then integrating the pieces together in a unified framework. These skills are essential to solving any problem beyond the classroom.

Summative and Formative Evaluation

Student learning in my courses will be evaluated through regular formative assessments, such as weekly simulation activities and minute papers, that will provide me with feedback on student progress and engagement with the material. Summative assessment for my Human Evolutionary Genetics course is in the form of the final project and presentation, where students will be evaluated on their ability to develop a hypothesis, model their expectations using population genetic theory discussed in the course, draw conclusions from the data, and communicate their results to their peers.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

I strive to create a welcoming and safe environment for both students and instructors in my classroom. In group discussions, I encourage students to recognize that it is okay to have differing opinions from our peers, and we can use evidence-based rationale to challenge opposing ideas. I do not tolerate disrespectful or discriminatory behavior in the classroom, and failure to uphold these values results in disciplinary action.