I enjoy teaching about and exploring the natural world, its diversity, and the challenges faced by our environment. I experience great satisfaction sharing with others beyond the classroom, including elementary school students and providing guest science lectures. My outreach efforts aim to help build interest and awareness of marine environments and the challenges they face, no matter the distance one may live from the coast or how removed they may think they are from these natural systems.
Stanford’s Thinking Matters Program
Fall 2019 – Spring 2021
Thinking Matters courses (a requirement for first-year students) develop students’ skills to critically evaluate information from scientific primary literature to popular news sources. They are conducted in both lecture and discussion formats and explore topics from health and disease to biodiversity.
Monterey Area Research Institutions’ Network for Education (MARINE)
Ocean Policy; Summer 2017
This course introduces ocean-interested early career professionals to ocean policy and governance, and how science influences public policy decisions at the international, national, and state levels. Participants learn about pressing challenges to ocean health, and together with leaders in ocean science and policy, examine how scientists (e.g., social, economic, natural) and researchers can and do work within the policy-making process to address these challenges.
The Pennsylvania State University
Introduction to Biological Concepts and Biodiversity; Fall 2013
An introduction to the foundation for the basic concepts that govern life. In addition, these concepts are used to explain the processes of evolution which contribute to the biodiversity that we observe today.
University of California, Merced
Introduction to Molecular Biology; Fall 2009
An introduction to the molecules and molecular processes underlying life. Overview of structures and chemical properties of biological macromolecules.
Cellular Biology; Fall 2008 through Spring 2012
An introduction to the structure and function of bacterial, plant and animal cells, with an emphasis on universal cellular systems, including regulation of subcellular organization, control of cellular processes by internal and external signaling, energy capture, storage and usage, and cell cycle.
Student Mentoring
Over the past 13 years I have served as a research mentor to 15 undergraduate and graduate students from six different educational institutions (UC Merced, Penn State University, University of Washington, University of Maryland, Oberlin College, Stanford University, & California State University, Monterey Bay).