Teaching Philosophy

My interest in teaching ultimately comes from my passion for learning about the natural world and my desire to share in that learning with others. In particular, the unifying concepts in biology, such as evolution by natural selection and gene by environment interactions, are powerful for understanding variation in nature and have important implications for human society and health. Learning conceptual frameworks in biology and then subsequently applying them to make sense of the world is an important goal of a college science education, and I see my role in this process as helping students develop the tools they need to independently evaluate evidence and to think critically about the complex systems of organisms and their ecology.

Teaching experience

As the instructor

• Animal Behavior, College of William & Mary
• Animal Communication, College of William & Mary
• Field Behavioral Ecology Lab, College of William & Mary
• Animal Behavior, University of Minnesota

As a teaching assistant

• Animal Behavior, University of Minnesota
• Foundations of Biology II (for biology majors), University of Minnesota
• Ecology, East Carolina University
• Principles of Biology (for biology majors), East Carolina University
• General Biology (for non-science majors), East Carolina University