Teaching

I teach General Biology II (BIOL 106), Molecular Ecology (BIOL 324/325), Field Botany (BIOL 326/327), Ornithology (BIOL 322/323) and the Biology Department’s capstone course for majors, Evolution (BIOL 414). I also organized the Biology Seminar Series for Undergraduate and Graduate students for five years (BIOL 490/600).

My courses aim to integrate various approaches to teaching (lecture, discussion, primary literature reading and interpretation, proposal writing, presentations, etc.) while always keeping a focus in the underlying fundamental principles or ‘Big Ideas’ of a particular topic. I also emphasize experiential learning in my lab courses. For example, in Molecular Ecology, students get to experience all the hands-on parts of a molecular ecology research project: collecting samples in the field, molecular lab work to extract DNA and amplify genes, and analytical work (using Geneious and R) to infer phylogenetic trees, examine population structure, and identify taxa.

In my field courses (Field Botany and Ornithology), we emphasize learning how to identify organisms in the field. For plants, this involves learning the nomenclature of botany and the synapomorphies that define clades of plants. For birds, we focus on using a variety of information on morphology, sounds, behavior, habitat, etc. to identify species in the field. We then take our knowledge on weekly field trips to amazing sites all around the Bay area. This sort of field learning is my favorite aspect of teaching, and I have had many students that find the experience transformative.