Experience Summary
Through my undergraduate degree in civil engineering, my graduate work focusing on physical geology and applications of remote sensing and my recent fellowship training at Columbia University’s interdisciplinary Earth Institute, I have gained a broad understanding of earth science. I have achieved expertise in and I am eager to teach in fields as diverse as mathematics, physical science, civil engineering and geosciences. As both an undergraduate and graduate student I assisted with laboratory and lecture classes addressing earth systems where data analysis and hypothesis testing were primary learning objectives. The active, hands-on nature of these classes was known to attract majors. Indeed, two of these majors subsequently became my advisees. I mentored their senior theses, and both students have gone on to post-graduate training in the sciences. This longstanding commitment to learning has led to awards for my teaching achievements at both Princeton and Columbia.
Teaching Style
I have found that the best way to provoke this sort of revolutionary insight in students is through active, participatory learning, in which the student must take the initiative to grapple with, identify and resolve a problem. I helped teach three courses organized in this manner: “Earthquakes, Volcanoes & Other Hazards,” at Princeton, and “The Solid Earth,” and “Geological Excursion: Death Valley,” both at Columbia. At Princeton, we made primary data available to the non-majors in the form of hand specimens, seismograms, theme maps of hazards and real time series data. Similarly, the Columbia classes presented students with a variety of data sources and problems; it was up to the students to determine what was relevant, to interpret the data in time and space and make connections between datasets. Based on these successes, my skills will be best matched with high school students and undergraduates.