Teaching Moments Everywhere

While I made the tough decision way back in high school not to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in education, I have never stopped loving teaching and looking for ways to integrate it into my professional experiences. From teaching opportunities during my Master’s degree to mentorship at NASA SARP to team leadership at Development Seed, I love the way that teaching pushes me to learn so much more about topics that I love.

NASA SARP: Coding, the Cloud, and Open Science

The NASA Student Airborne Research Program (SARP) is a premier NASA internship for rising senior undergraduate students. The program brings together ~50 undergraduates and 10 graduate students for an authentic, hands-on research experience. Student research projects are self-driven and high quality, with many students choosing to present their work at the American Geophysical Union conference each year.

At SARP I proposed and implemented the use of a JupyterHub computing platform for students to gain authentic, hands-on, cutting edge training in research science on the cloud. I developed materials for students to access and manipulate cloud NASA data, including cloud-optimizing commonly used datasets. In addition to development and instruction I found lots of joy mentoring two coding instructors each summer.

UMD AOSC Teaching Roles

I was fortunate to have a number of teaching opportunities throughout my Masters degree in the University of Maryland’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science (AOSC). They are:

Group tutor: Atmospheric and Oceanic Dynamics (AOSC 610)

Provided weekly supplemental lectures and open office hours for this graduate-level dynamics course.

Biogeochemistry Module Lead: Oceanography of the Chesapeake and Mid-Atlantic Bight (AOSC 421)

Designed and taught a 4-week module on biogeochemistry for upper-level undergraduates. This included designing a homework set, holding office hours, grading, and assisting on an educational research cruise.

Teaching Assistant: Causes and Implications of Global Change (AOSC 123)

Ran weekly recitation sessions, graded assignments, and facilitated classroom activities for a general education climate change course (two semesters).

Formal Education Training

The University of Maryland’s Teaching and Learning Transformation Center (TLTC) has a talented group of educational experts that provide excellent training materials on the principles of teaching. My participation in TLTC training included: a semester-long active learning literature circle, six different 2-3 hour workshops, a teaching observation, and curriculum design sessions.