Teaching Experience

GEOSC 202: Chemical Processes in Geology

Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2024, & Spring 2026

While often challenging, this was my favorite lab course I have taught (and continue to teach) at Penn State. This is an upper-level geochemistry lab course for geoscience majors that covers topics including pH, conductivity, alkalinity, dissolved nutrients, acid mine drainage (AMD), weathering, carbonate speciation, and more. Students also participate in 2 lab field trips during the semester to make in-situ water measurements and collect samples for water quality experiments, and to a passive AMD remediation site nearby. As the single TA for this lab course, my responsibilities include organizing and preparing all laboratory and field trip supplies, grading and providing feedback for student lab reports, and directly interfacing with students during lab meetings and office hours to support learning of complicated geochemical topics.

International Geobiology Course (IGC)

Summer 2023, 2024, & 2025

The IGC course is an ‘immersive and interdisciplinary course that explores how microbial life and the Earth have shaped each other’ for Ph.D. students that has been hosted by several universities over the past 2 decades. Penn State inherited the IGC course in 2023 and, following a 2-week field experience in central Italy and incorporating findings from a weekend trip to Green Lake (NY), are instructed by leading scholars in the field, gain hands-on experience using a suite of biogeochemical tools and facilities at Penn State, and present new research based on these findings at the end of each course session. I have been a lecturer for this course since its beginning at Penn State, creating and leading a course module dedicated to lipid biomarker analyses and the instruments used to detect them. My module includes lectures and lab work, the latter of which ranges from traditional wet chemistry sample preparation to learning to pilot and interpret biomarker results from mass spectrometers (GC-MS, HPLC-MS).

GEOSC 040: The Sea Around Us

Spring 2021, 2025

This is an entry-level oceanography course for geoscience students that also fulfills a science credit for non-majors. As such, class sizes are typically large and have exceeded 300 students during each semester of my teaching. As a single course without a lab section, my responsibilities supplemented professorial teaching needs and mainly included interfacing with students during office hours and grading class discussions, data projects, and written assignments.

GEOSC 402: Natural Disasters

Spring 2022

This is an entry level course for geoscience students that also fulfills a science credit for non-majors. This is a popular course for majors and non-majors alike because the discussion of natural disasters are framed around inaccurate depictions in cli-fi and sci-fi movies (e.g., San Andreas, Dante’s Peak, The Day After Tomorrow, etc.), which are always used to introduce a new geological hazard (i.e., module) in the class. Similar to GEOSC 040, class sizes of 300+ students are typical. My teaching experience in this class included interfacing with students during office hours, and grading computational and written assignments.

GEOSC 001: Physical Geology

Fall 2021

This is the first fundamental lab course required for geoscience majors and also fulfills a lab requirement for non-majors. The lab section for this course provides a more in-depth learning opportunity to supplement topics covered during the main lecture, including labs on tectonics, minerals, geologic time, geologic mapping, sedimentary processes and rocks, igneous processes and rocks, mountain building and metamorphic rocks, streams and dams, and groundwater flow. Students also participate in 2 field trips during the semester to describe the stratigraphy of a local Silurian outcrop and to characterize the geologic history of the region. My responsibilities for this course involved organizing and preparing laboratory and field trip supplies, grading and providing feedback for student lab reports, working with students during office hours to support learning of and early enthusiasm for geologic topics, and interfacing with other course teaching assistants to ensure students met all laboratory requirements for the course.