Teaching
While I am occasionally called upon to teach a variety of subjects in biology, these are my primary teaching responsibilities and ones that I have a passion for:
BIO 100 Concepts of Biology
As a course designed specifically for non-science majors, I teach it with the goal of producing educated consumer/citizens who have to navigate our increasingly technological world.
BIO 101 Freshman Seminar for Biology Majors
This course was developed several years ago when we realized that a significant portion of our freshmen biology majors did not advance to their sophomore year. This coincided with a university initiative to foster more engagement and better retention of our students. The course attempts to help our freshmen not only survive, but thrive in our program.
BIO 103 General Biology I
I am usually the first biology professor encountered by freshmen in our department as I teach this initial content course in their major. This first semester course centers around the scientific method, biological chemistry, cells, genetics, and molecular biology.
BIO 410 Topics in Molecular Genetics
This course consists of an integrated set of experiments utilizing contemporary molecular techniques to answer biological questions posed by the students themselves. Students are expected to develop a research proposal, conduct the experiments, and present the details of their project in a public forum.
BIO 539 Molecular Biology of Prokaryotes
The course I developed for our Master’s degree program in Integrative Biological Diversity (IBD) examines the use of molecular and bioinformatic tools to understand the interactions between Prokaryotes and their environments.
