Teaching
Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, Outdoor Instructor
My geology teacher in high school inspired us to learn about the Earth while on outdoor trips around the Southwest, and his enthusiasm for teaching and geology was infectious. As an undergraduate at Brown University, I began to develop my passion for teaching, where I volunteered as a backpacking trip leader (BOLT program) in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and served as a teaching assistant for an introductory geology class.
I took a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) Instructor Course in the summer of 2011 and spent several summers instructing NOLS courses in the Wind River Range of Wyoming. While leading backpacking trips, I taught about subjects ranging from geology to Leave No Trace to backcountry navigation to wilderness first aid. I typically worked with 12 students at high school to college age on a 28-day course.
Middle and High School Teacher
After working as a hydrology intern at the USGS for a year after college (2006-2007), I taught full time at a middle and high school for five years (2007-2012). As a classroom teacher, I planned interactive activities, lectures, and field trips for students ranging in age from 10-18 years old. In a given year, I typically taught 2-4 different subjects, some of which had different sections, for about 60-80 students total. Courses I taught included fifth grade environmental science, sixth grade geology, high school SAT/ACT math, upper level high school Spanish, and AP Environmental Science.
College/University and Community Teaching
While in graduate school at the University of Arizona, I served as a Teaching Assistant for Global Change, a combined undergraduate and graduate level course. While in graduate school, I was also leading/instructing NOLS courses over the summer (when I wasn't conducting field work for my dissertation), participated in science communication (e.g., Carson Scholar, AAAS) trainings, and gave outreach lectures at breweries and local science companies and nonprofits.
After graduate school, I continued to give community outreach lectures at the Santa Fe Botanical Gardens in New Mexico. I also continued to enjoy teaching for the University of Washington Atmospheric Sciences department and the Earth and Space Sciences department, where I guest lectured in undergraduate classes (30-100 students) on topics related to climate variability and paleoclimate.
At the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment, in addition to conducting climate and air pollution impacts research, I taught Climate and Society, a class of ~40 undergraduate and Masters of Environmental Management (MEM) students. The class covered climate basics (weather vs climate, Earth's energy balance), as well as climate projections and societal choices and context related to climate change.