Teaching

I seek to equip my students with the mindset and the necessary tools to explore ideas in the fields of biology and human health and to allow them to appreciate the broader impacts of what they have learned. Furthermore, I am committed to fostering an appropriate learning environment where students feel empowered to challenge themselves, to apply their knowledge and skills to broaden the field, and to ask critical questions.

I served as a teaching assistant in Biology 314: Regenerative Biology and Medicine at Duke University it the first year of its formation. This gave me hands-on experience in helping to design and teach a university biology course. My responsibilities included course design, leading student discussions, designing and giving two guest lectures, evaluating students, and giving feedback.  

In my research laboratory, I have also mentored both an undergraduate student and an incoming graduate student. In this role, I helped them build hypotheses, design experiments and procedures, and analyze and interpret their data. 

I believe that student engagement is critical for effective learning. For example, in Biology 314 we gave students small group activities during lectures to provide them with opportunities for active participation. Groups of students worked on a problem and later shared their opinions with the class. These activities helped solidify key concepts from the lecture. The course also involved several larger group projects, where the groups would work for several weeks exploring ideas before presenting them formally to the class. By allowing them to present their work, students had a high sense of appreciation and ownership of the material. Student presentations also gave the audience an opportunity to engage with the material, and the students  seemed to enjoy these types of activities.

Similarly, in the research laboratory, I help students to understand the purpose of our experiments and the rationale, not just the techniques. My primary motivation for mentoring them is to help them become independent thinkers and lab members. I help them to develop skills to first ask “why” prior to searching for “how” when it comes to tackling scientific research questions.

I have found that my students learn best when they trust that I am on their side and interested in their success. In BIO 314, I communicated to my students that I cared about their concerns and I was available to meet with them. Some students reacheded out via e-mail, leading to in-person conversations outside of lecture. I also made time before and after lecture for short voluntary check-ins with students. Students also know that I their honest opinions, and I frequently asked them to provide informal feedback to improve the course throughout the semester. By creating this safe atmosphere and trusting relationship, my students felt comfortable asking for more general guidance and broader mentoring, both from me and the professors.

During my PhD studies at Duke University, I also acquired a certificate in college teaching and was selected as a Preparing Future Faculty Program (PFF) fellow in 2022-2023. As a PFF fellow, I was mentored by faculty at various institutions in North Carolina, and got to see first-hand the various roles that they play in academia. These teaching and mentoring experiences, coupled with a peer-observation program that provided me great feedback on my teaching as well as opportunities to observe my peers' teaching, have allowed me to evaluate my commitment to teaching and solidify my teaching philosophy. 

I would be happy to teach introductory biology courses, upper-level cellular and molecular biology, and regenerative biology courses. I hope to expand my teaching to more specific topics in immunology and microbiology during my post-doctoral training.