Research Assistant Professor
Michigan Technological University, MI
Teaching Experiences
Principles of Bioinformatics (BL2700)
Michigan Technological University
Semesters Taught: Fall Semesters 2022-2023
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Principles of Bioinformatics is an undergraduate level course aimed towards biology students hoping to learn about bioinformatics and gain skills performing basic bioinformatics analyses. Topics covered include guiding principles for data generation, curation, wrangling, and statistics as well as accessing biological data from databases, multiple sequence alignments and phylogenetic tree construction algorithms, tools for genome assembly and annotation, handling next-generation sequencing data. The final portion of the class includes genome or metagenome analysis of unanalyzed data from research actively being performed at Michigan Tech. This analysis is concluded with a term paper describing the data analysis and conclusions of the students work. In the Fall of 2022, the results from the students' metagenome analysis project were published in the Microbial Resource Announcements journal with all students listed as co-authors (doi:10.1128/mra.01304-22).
The Dynamic Earth Lab (GLG201)
Michigan State University
Semesters Taught: Fall Semesters 2017-2019
Served as Laboratory Coordinator during the fall of 2018 and 2019
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The Dynamic Earth Lab is a laboratory course that meets for two hours once a week to complement the Introductory Geology lecture course. During the course students learn basic skills necessary to study geology including: understanding geologic time and the geologic time scale, identifying minerals and rocks, reading topographic maps, and drawing cross-sections. The skills learned in the lab are meant to enhance their understanding of lecture material and to provide students with a solid basis for continued studies in the earth sciences. The course includes weekly laboratory assignments and two practical exams to test student's proficiency using the skills learned in lab.
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Fall 2019 Teaching Evaluations*
Geology and the Human Environment (ISP203L)
Michigan State University
Semesters Taught: Fall Semester 2016, Spring Semester 2020
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The Geology of the Red Cedar River Lab is a laboratory course that meets for two hours once a week. It is a stand alone lab course, but it complements the ISP203A (Global Change) or ISP203B (Natural Hazards & Environment) courses. During the course students learn basic skills and knowledge related to the study of the natural world using physical, chemical, and biological methods. The course also teaches students how to use the scientific method and to perform basic data analysis. This class is designed for non-science majors, so lab activities focus largely on improving scientific and quantitative literacy of the students.
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Spring 2020 Syllabus and Schedule
Spring 2020 Teaching Evaluations*
Fall 2016 Teaching Evaluations*
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* MSU Teaching Evaluation questions use a ranked number system of 1-5 where 1 is excellent and 5 is poor