Integrating teaching and research to improve learning outcomes

Our planet’s web of life is the most exciting and difficult puzzle that has ever existed. As biodiversity scientists we get to spend our days finding the pieces and trying to put them together. As a teacher and mentor my goal is to get students excited about biodiversity, train them in the modern scientific method and help build their chosen career. I do this via experiential classroom and field-based learning in small groups, and by helping students to pose and answer useful, well thought out questions.

I have taught for 3+ years total at the University of Maryland, UCLA, the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL and the University of Amsterdam. This involved delivering weekly lectures and exercises as part of discussion sections, administering and grading exams and assignments, as well as organizing and delivering workshops on coding and spatial analysis. In addition, I developed a hybrid Discussion-Lab course (see figure below). This course integrates research and teaching using plant ecology fieldwork, and builds critical thinking, collaboration and writing skills (link to course GitHub repo). This approach is reflective of large team research that is increasingly common in biodiversity science today.

To implement the Discussion-Lab we worked with the UCLA botanical garden. Our research goal was to measure and compare the functional traits of plants in three distinct habitats within the garden. Weekly section groups of ~20 students gathered data via functional trait transects. Groups of students then posed hypotheses about how traits might vary across habitats, analyzed the results in the R programming language, and wrote a final paper and presented the results during a class symposium.

Short workshops organized:
Building mechanistic models to predict biodiversity dynamics, 15 participants, 2023
2-day discussion group at University of Zürich Biodiversity Convention in Monte Verità, CH

Intro to GIS in R workshop, ~40 participants, virtual (Swiss Federal Institute WSL), 2021
Wrote and taught an R script for creating, importing, plotting and analyzing spatial data

Intro to R workshop, ~20 participants, University of Maryland, College Park, 2014
Wrote and taught an R script introducing the basics of R coding

Guest lectures:
‘Building a global ecology of species interactions’
Fall 2022, Utrecht University, the Netherlands, for ‘Tropical Ecology’ course

‘Evolution, maintenance and conservation of biodiversity’
Fall 2016, UCLA for ‘Why ecology matters: The science behind environmental issues’ course

Teaching assistantships and curriculum development:
Global Ecology and Biodiversity, University of Amsterdam, Fall 2022 (MSc level)
Advised three groups of master’s students on a 3-week research project in macroecology and functional biogeography, included coding in R, presentations and a scientific report.

Ecology, UCLA, Winter 2019 (undergraduate)
Created hybrid Discussion-Lab section (see above) involving asking questions, plant trait data collection in a botanical garden, sharing and analysis of data, writing and research talks for ~60 students; wrote syllabus, lectured and led discussions, graded assignments and tests.

Tropical Ecology, UCLA, Fall 2018 (undergraduate)
Developed “Asking questions” assignment for ~130 students; wrote a syllabus, lectured and led discussions, graded assignments and tests.

Conservation Biology, UCLA, Summer 2018 and Winter 2018 (undergraduate)
Lectured and led discussions, graded assignments and tests.

Plant Physiology, UCLA, Spring 2018 and Spring 2017 (undergraduate)
Developed “Asking questions” assignment ~350 students; lectured and led discussions, graded assignments and tests.

Why Ecology Matters, UCLA, Fall 2016 (undergraduate)
Developed debate activity for ~40 students; lectured and led discussions, graded assignments and tests.

Ecology, University of Maryland, College Park, Spring 2013 (undergraduate)
Lectured and led discussions, graded assignments and tests.

Ecology and Evolution, University of Maryland, College Park, Fall 2012 (undergraduate)
Lectured, led discussions and lab exercises, graded assignments and tests.