Teaching

Semester-long courses  

Marine Biology Harvard University (Spring 2021, 2022, 2023)  I created and teach and undergraduate course in Marine Biology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. In this introductory-level course, I guide my students through the exploration of marine biology with a focus on the interrelated topics of marine physiology, ecology, and evolution. As I build understanding of these fundamentals, we use them as lenses to view and understand larger patterns in the ocean and the growing threats to marine life. In addition to lectures, I use student-led investigations, creative writing assignments, debates, discussions, “Ecosystem Boggle”, mock UNEP meetings, and guests to enhance learning and retention.                                                                                                           

Conservation Biology Harvard University (Spring 2018, 2019, 2021) I created and teach an undergraduate course in Conservation Biology within the Environmental Science and Public Policy concentration. The course covers a range of topics in classical and modern conservation biology and, in addition to lectures, includes student-led investigations, creative writing assignments, debates, mock fisheries negotiations, game theory applications, and a two-day trip to Maine to observe marine conservation in action.

Short courses

The Diversity Project University of California Los Angeles & San Diego State University                                                                      I co-organized a four-week, full-time summer course on microbial ecology and coral reef ecology for Diversity Project students (American undergraduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities), including teaching and supervising one week of intensive laboratory techniques to assist students in preparing DNA samples for amplicon sequencing of bacterial communities from algae. I also co-organized and taught a three-week, full-time summer course on microbial ecology and coral reef ecology for Diversity Project students and Indonesian student researchers. In addition to leading discussions and laboratory training, I lectured on global biodiversity patterns, coral reef ecology, and tropical marine fieldwork.

Field courses                                   

Census of cryptic reef diversity Anilao, Philippines    Filipino undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and museum researchers worked with out team to recover autonomous reef monitoring structures (ARMS) from five sites in the Verde Island Passage, Philippines. We systematically disassembled the ARMS in the field in order to study the cryptic biodiversity of coral reefs. Following our field work, I co-organized and taught a one-week, full-time course at De La Salle University (Manila, Philippines) on coral reef biodiversity and next-generation analytical tools (metabolomics and metagenomics) for Filipino undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. In addition to the laboratory training we provided, I lectured on coral reef metabolomics and ecology.

Graduate student mentoring

San Diego State University I advised and mentored four Masters students and one Ph.D. student at San Diego State University via weekly meetings, feedback on bi-weekly goals, and overseeing their proposals and implementation of thesis research. This role included supporting students from project conception through publication.

High school courses    

Biology and Environmental Engineering High Tech High North County, San Marcos California As an NSF GK-12 Fellow, I prepared and taught weekly marine biology and marine husbandry lessons to sixty students for a full school year. Building off the project-based focus of the school (High Tech High), I acquired funding for and oversaw a fifteen-tank coral experiment in a high school classroom that involved sixty students and was conducted over an entire school year. Students built aquarium systems from scratch and performed experiments in the classroom to examine the effects of fertilizers on hard corals. Our work in the classroom is highlighted in a student film and our conservation efforts were chronicled in another student film.

This project inspired me to write a letter to the editor in Nature arguing that science literacy benefits everyone, not just scientists.

This project was highlighted in the primary newspaper in Curaçao ("Protest mail from America" - Amigoe Newspaper) and periodicals in the United States ("Socrates Fellow brings coral research to local high school" - This Week @ UC San Diego).

I also blogged about the project for the San Diego Union Tribune newspaper.