Teaching

Educators have the power to transform students’ careers. My career trajectory was transformed by dedicated mentors who prioritized my development as a scientist. This personal experience shaped my commitment to quality teaching and mentorship. I believe that when the goal of education is centered on ownership, students become self-motivated, and progress naturally follows.

I have mentored five undergraduate students in research at Georgia Tech and Caltech. At the beginning of each project, I set clear expectations and aligned the project’s and the student’s goals. By elucidating how each step in the project contributes to the student’s goals and the overarching research goal, students are driven to take ownership of the project.

Additionally, I am actively involved in the international Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) community. To date, I have mentored a women-majority high school iGEM team in Lambert, GA, guiding them through the competition. I have also been an external mentor to three collegiate iGEM teams (University of Maryland, Zhejiang University of Technology, and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), helping them with biosensor design and troubleshooting experiments. My mentorship efforts have been recognized with the Most Dedicated Mentor Award from the iGEM community.

In my teaching experiences, I have taught classes in Transport Phenomena (co-instructor), Numerical Methods (teaching assistant), and Chemical Process Design and Economics (teaching assistant). As a co-instructor and guest lecturer, I employ active, project-based learning in the classroom. I ask students to use their background knowledge to identify and categorize variables before deriving the governing equations in class. As a teaching assistant, I practice “think-pair-share” during office hours to give students opportunities to assess and practice their learning mastery with peers.

As a chemical engineering faculty candidate, I am enthusiastic about teaching undergraduate classes in numerical methods, chemical kinetics, and transport phenomena. Additionally, I am interested in teaching graduate classes in biomolecular engineering as well as developing new courses in synthetic biosystems design and virus-based technologies.