Editor Degrees

Ph.D. in ecology and evolution, Rutgers University

B.S. in ecology, evolution, and behavior, University of Minnesota 

About Teaching and CourseSource

Experiences in the undergraduate classroom have taught me that students often see biology as a series of facts to memorize, regurgitate, and forget. Indeed, our approaches to teaching often reinforce this idea, as we lecture, test, lecture, test. As an instructor, my goal is to create learning opportunities that help students become critical, productive, thoughtful, capable citizens. Perhaps my biggest goal in the classroom is to help students see science as a process, a process of learning, making mistakes, and building connections. Since I teach introductory biology, this goal can have lasting effects, impacting students in their next course, professional school, and beyond. I may be a passionate ecologist, but ultimately, I want to ignite my students’ passion for learning.

Every day, I talk with faculty and postdocs who want to do more in their classrooms. They feel their students’ frustration and disengagement with lecture and they want to do more. Instructors want to engage and connect with their students, to make biology come alive. CourseSource provides tested interventions that teach core concepts and competencies in biology – it is a trusted resource for many faculty. Growing the CourseSource collections will enable more instructors to teach better, helping to build a generation of biologically literate students.