Teaching

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

At Cornell, I have had the unique fortune to teach my own classes that I have designed myself. Currently, I teach a graduate seminar course on biogeochemistry. Last fall, I taught a First-Year Writing Seminar entitled “What’s For Dinner,” where I designed a curriculum driving students to read critically and to write deliberately. We explored how authors motivate and persuade readers, and our readings focused on the complex landscape of the American food system. While my classes include a rigorous backing in biogeochemistry and basic agricultural science, I have focused on the extremely palatable subject of food in order to address larger issues of community socioeconomics that interest me.

In the summer of 2023, I was a TA for BIOEE 1781, Introduction to Evolution and Diversity. Previously, I TA’d and co-instructed in BIOEE 4940, Quantitative Ecology, where I designed and taught the curriculum in R alongside an assistant professor teaching the course in Python. In the spring of 2024, I was the sole and first TA for the longest-running graduate field course in history. I planned and structured a two-week trip bringing other graduate students from my department to Archbold Biological Station – my main field site – to practice designing field-experiments.

I am a member of the Cornell Physical Education department, generally coaching one class a semester. In Fall 2023 and 2024, I coached PE 1584 Powerbuilding, a course I designed to teach basic confidence in basic powerlifting movements.