Teaching and Mentoring
Overview
Teaching has been a core component of my development, and effective and inclusive teaching is one of my priorities. In addition to working as a teaching assistant during my PhD, Masters, and undergraduate, I earned a certification in Evidence-based Teaching from the Center for Teaching and Learning at San Diego State University in 2018. From 2020 to 2023, I worked as a Teaching Fellow with the McGraw Center at Princeton University, where I developed pedagogy workshops and led teaching orientations for other graduate student instructors.
Courses taught
Genomics in the Wild (Princeton Field Course, Laikipia, Kenya) - Assistant in Instruction, Spring 2023
Guest lectures: Genomic data analysis, Introduction to data analysis in R
Evolutionary Biology (Princeton University) - Assistant in Instruction, Fall 2019
Evolutionary Biology (San Diego State University) - Teaching Assistant, Fall 2018
Guest lecture: Phylogenetic comparative methods
Introductory Biology (San Diego State University) - Teaching Assistant, Fall 2016 and Fall 2017
Invertebrate Zoology (Brown University) - Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, Fall 2012 and Fall 2013
K-12 science education
I was an AmeriCorps Field Education Intern at the Teton Science Schools in 2016 and a mentor with the Outdoor Leadership and Environmental Education Program from 2010 - 2012. In both programs I developed and taught biology, natural history, and environmental justice curricula.
Mentoring
From 2020-2022 I co-organized and developed Princeton EEB Mentors, a program which connects students interested in applying to Ecology and Evolutionary Biology graduate programs with current Princeton EEB graduate students and postdocs who support them through the process of applying to graduate school. Mentors provide feedback on graduate school and/or funding application materials and insight into contacting faculty, applying, interviewing, and choosing schools. I also work closely with Princeton thesis students and undergraduate researchers (Darlene Barrios and Patrick Newcombe) to develop projects and conduct museum-based research.
Darlene Barrios at the American Museum of Natural History