Team Bios

Peter Novick

Learning Collectives Faculty Advisor

Biology at QCC

Dr. Novick began his science career at the University of Delaware where he received his Bachelors in Biology. Thereafter, he was accepted to the CUNY Graduate Program where he completed both his Master’s and Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics. Dr. Novick’s main research interest is in bioinformatics/genomics and his publications are primarily based on the evolution of transposable elements. Although his main work began with the analysis of eukaryotic genomes, primarily the lizard, he has since extended to bacterial genomics. Dr. Novick has been at Queensborough Community College since 2010 where he developed a Bioinformatics course for the Biotechnology Program. Following training at the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute to annotate bacterial genomes, he incorporated this project as undergraduate research to the course. Dr. Novick believes in alternative pedagogical strategies and has enriched his courses with Service Learning, Writing Intensive components and the QCC Common Read with books such as “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” and “Picking Cotton.” Outside of the classroom, Dr. Novick mentors and trains QCC research students and runs a Summer Biotechnology Boot camp for underrepresented High School students, both funded by the NSF MSEIP program. In HSI-STEM, Dr. Novick is involved with the redesign of Bio 201 and works closely with the peer mentors, leading weekly pedagogy training sessions.


Contact him at: PNovick@qcc.cuny.edu