Teaching

I have taught students at the medical school and undergraduate level at different institutions, in team settings and as the instructor of record. My focus is Human Anatomy and Physiology, but I have also taught courses on vertebrate evolution and historical geology.

Suffolk University

Bio 114/L114, Introduction to Organismal Biology: This course of ~80 students is foundational for the biology major and covers evolution, phylogenetics, and a broad look at the organismal tree of life. This course is taken mostly by biology and chemistry majors, but also by a large portion of students across other majors and at different levels of experience as part of their core curriculum. I have incorporated various active learning activities and novel grading pedagogies to improve retention and student engagement.

Bio 203/L203 and 204/L204, Anatomy and Physiology I and II: This two-semester sequence goes through human anatomy in a systems based approach. In 2020, I redesigned the lecture as a flipped classroom, with daily case studies and presentations. This incorporated latest teaching practices to provide many low-stakes practice assessments, allow students to apply the content to medical scenarios, and practice professional competencies like oral and written communication, teamwork, and bedside manner. In 2023, I redesigned the laboratory to reduce cognitive load for the students, while providing more guidance, multimodal learning, and testing practice each session. These redesigns have improved student learning outcomes significantly and content retention for years down the line.

Bio 321, Earth and Life Through Time: This team-taught course for upper level biology majors covered introductory topics in geology and a historical look at the development of life on Earth. The students worked on a semester-long writing assignment where they investigated various geological and biological aspects of a fossiliferous formation and presented their findings to the class.

Stony Brook University

Med 500a, The Body: As a teaching postdoc at Stony Brook University's Department of Anatomy, I co-taught the laboratory for this medical school course. The laboratory was human-cadaver based with five to six students at each table. I co-created dissection videos that introduced the students to each day's dissection and showed the important structures they would be finding.

Bio 388, Vertebrate Zoology: This course for undergraduates was an introduction to vertebrate diversity and evolution. I stepped in to teach seven lectures when professor of record became unavailable.