I enjoy teaching and place just as much value on cultivating myself as an educator as I do as a scientist.
Teaching Philosophy:
Earth science education reaches beyond the simple dissemination of knowledge; it sparks curiosity and empowers students to perceive, understand, and responsibly act within the natural world. Students learn best when they can incorporate subject matter into their own lives and cultures (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Thus, my primary goals as a teacher are to:
- offer student-centered activities that foster creativity and critical thinking by highlighting personal stakes, and
- provide students with the practical skills necessary to synthesize interdisciplinary concepts and tackle real-world, multifaceted problems.
You can find more details in my Teaching Statement (updated September 2019).
Teaching Experience:
I have extensive experience as a university-level pre-doctoral instructor and teaching assistant. In this capacity, I have created many Educational Resources that I share openly.
You can find more details below and in my Curriculum Vitae (updated September 2019).
I serve as the graduate student representative for the UW College of the Environment’s Curriculum Committee. In this role, I help oversee curricular policy and stimulate new educational ideas and developments in the college.
I proudly serve as an advisory director of Engage, a course and speaker series created and maintained by graduate students for graduate students that strives to make good science communication a cultural norm. I taught the seminar course in 2016, served as the advisory instructor in 2017, and led the program as manager in 2017-2018. I now sit on the Advisory Board of Directors and continue to represent this program by giving public presentations and hosting science communication workshops.
I am an NSF IGERT Program on Ocean Change fellow. This group of interdisciplinary graduate students and faculty members at the University of Washington incorporates the social implications of ocean change into their research. Through this program and in partnership with the UW Program on Climate Change, I was part of an interdisciplinary team of graduate students that created and implemented three week-long curriculum units for middle school students that explore the natural phenomena through inquisitive and interactive lesson plans.