Science Communication
Sharing my research across mediums:
-
Why and how does personality emerge? Studying the evolution of individuality using thousands of fruit flies
A Scientist at Work article for The Conversation U.S. where I reflect on a multi-year evolution experiment and discuss the evolution of animal personality.
-
Genetics in Our World podcast interview
In this interview, I discuss a model to simulate and study the evolution of behavioral variability based on my recent publication (see related paper in G3).
-
Workshop: “Science, Story, and Pictures: A Beginner’s Guide to Communicating Your Science with Comics” (Entomology Conference, 2024).
Here is the comic (PDF) I made highlighting my research questions.
Science Education Partner — Harvard Museums of Science & Culture
-
Science Spotlights talk: “Some Like it Hot ...But Why?”
A popular-science talk on the evolution of animal personality for general museum audiences.
-
“Meet a Scientist” events
Interactive exhibits at the Harvard Museum of Natural History demonstrating research methods, adapted for audiences from children to adults.
Teaching
I am passionate about pedagogy and strive to create engaging, inclusive classrooms. As a graduate student in the Organismic & Evolutionary Biology department, I taught the following courses:
-
Evolutionary Biology:
This course was all things evolution, from its history to the mechnaisms behind evolution and major evolutionary patterns and process. I led weekly small-group sections covering core concepts, solving numerical problems & moderating paper discussions. I also mentored students on their synthesis term papers, and delivered a lecture on experimental evolution.
-
Population Genetics:
Focussing on the mathematics of studying evolving populations, this course was fully theoretical. I ran weekly problem-solving sessions and graded problem sets.
-
The Fishy Aspects of the Human Body:
An interdiscplinary course, this emphasized science communication using Shubin’s Finding Your Inner Fish. Every week, we discussed one chapter of this book focussing on the scientific research underlying it as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the communication of this research. Additionally, I led weekly labs wherein we used museum specimens to understand how vertebrates evolved.
-
Understanding Darwinism:
This course combined the history of evolutionary biology with key concepts in evolution. I led discussion sections on research papers and Darwin’s Origin and supervised final papers or creative projects exploring a facet of evolution.
-
Foundations of Biological Diversity:
I taught this course during the pandemic! I led virtual discussions, supervised at-home experiments and helped students write a final pratice grant proposal on a topic of their choice.
Pedagogical Development:
- Bok Center Teaching Certificate — Harvard Derek Bok Center for Teaching & Learning.
- Workshop: “How to Teach Writing Assignments—And Design Your Own”
Designing effective writing assignments and fair grading approaches across STEM and non-STEM. - Workshop: “Teaching with Generative AI”
Exploring the practical uses and caveats of generative AI for teaching and course logistics (including custom GPTs).