Teaching
I have taught four courses as a Graduate Teaching Assistant: Earth's Climate through Time and Astrobiology. The first course is a survey of the Earth's climate and the major processes that control it and its feedbacks. In 2024, I was able to redesign the lab materials to place greater emphasis on students' lived experiences, particularly the effects of modern climate change on their lives and futures. Astrobiology is another very interesting class which covers a broad range of topics including how planets form to the role of oceans in long term habitability and ecosystem development. In Spring 2025, I was teaching assistant for Chemistry of Natural Waters where I gained upper division instructional experience. In Summer 2025, I returned to terrestrial field work as an instructor for UCR's Field Camp in the Eastern Sierra. Here I applied my knowledge of modern sedimentary and volcanic environments to interpreting geology of the Poleta Folds (fold and thrust belt), Gull Lake (pluton intrusion into Paleozoic marine sediments), and Mono Lake (modern volcanism and alkaline aqueous chemistry).
I am passionate about education and employing up-to-date, modern teaching styles and methods. To this end, I applied for and completed the UCR University Teaching Certificate program to learn pedagogical theory and best practices for university-level instruction. This built on experience I had from my undergraduate institution where I worked at the Oklahoma State University Writing Center and gained one-on-one instruction and teaching experience. While at the Writing Center, I was the coordinator for a course on STEM writing which was co-taught with a professor in the Microbiology and Molecular Biology Department. This course stresses the role of effective communication through a variety of media formats in promoting science beyond the classroom. I have further developed my background through a series of workshops provided by the UCR Teaching Assistant Development Program.
Mentorship
Mentoring is a key aspect of my own identity. I have benefitted immensely from all the mentors in my life, both within academia and in my personal life. To this end, I have engaged in several mentorship programs both as a mentor and a mentee - I believe that continued experience in both roles leads to my own growth as a mentor and scientist. Perhaps closest to my heart have been the mentees I have had worked with through the various Goldwater mentorship programs. In particular, the Goldwater Moore Diversity and Inclusion Mentorship Program connected me to students from underrepresented institutions including UCR and California State University, Fullerton.
In addition to these programs, I have also mentored two undergraduate researchers. At Oklahoma State University, I mentored Jacob Archer who went on to present our project at the Geological Society of America South Central annual meeting and recently completed his Master's at OSU! At UCR, I have co-mentored several students and been the primary mentor for one - Mikayla Martinez (B.S., 2024). My mentorship style with both focused on balancing regular labwork, guided paper reading, and flexibility. Maintaining open communication has grounded me in realizing that hectic lives and schedules that students have and highlights the role that regular dialogue and meeting where students are at is critical for building positive relationships that can last. No need for burnout here!
Please find a summary of my teaching experience, pedagogical training, and mentored students below:
University of California, Riverside
Teaching Assistant
GEO 002: Earth’s Climate through Time (Head TA 2021, 2024; TA 2022)
GEO 080: Astrobiology (TA 2022, 2023)
GEO 137: Chemistry of Natural Waters
GEO 102B: Summer Field Geology
University of California, Riverside Teaching Assistant Development Program
University Teaching Certificate Program (2023-2024 cohort; 20-week training)
Decolonization in Pedagogical Practice
Effective Instruction in a Laboratory Setting
New Technologies in the Classroom to Foster Student Engagement
Providing Constructive Feedback
Oklahoma State University
Oklahoma State University Writing Center
Assistant Director (August 2018 – May 2020)
Coordinator MICR 3333: Molecular Life Science Writing (August 2018 – May 2020)
Peer Consultant (August 2017 – May 2020)
Advised and Mentored Students
Undergraduate Student Researcher
Mickayla Martinez - UCR, 2023-2024 (B.S., Earth Sciences, 2024)
Jacob Archer - OSU, 2019-2020 (B.S., Geology, 2022; M.S., Structural Geology, 2024)
Goldwater Scholarship Program Mentees (*denotes awarded scholar)
Zakaria Khan* (2023-2024)
Christine Swanson* (2022-2023)
Rayyan Ayoub* (2022-2023)
Annabelle Recinos* (2021-2022)
Georgia Frances Eastham* (2021-2022)
Ibrahim Maaz* (2021-2022)
Andrea Ceja (2021-2022)
Madalyn Hernandez* (2021-2022)
Kathy Tran (2021-2022)
Advyth Ramachandran* (2021-2022)
Zoe Dietrich* (2021-2022)