Mentorship

During my time as a PhD student, I have mentored two undergraduate students on research projects. 

• Heidi Williamson (2023) — Trained in ImageJ to collect morphological measurements of mantled howler monkey testes for an inter-observer reliability analysis, contributing data to a peer-reviewed publication.

• Aidan Lee (2023–2026) — Mentored through a multi-year research project examining the repeatability of morphological measurements of baboon estrous swellings. Aidan developed skills in ImageJ, data management, statistical analysis in R, and scientific writing, culminating in a university honors thesis and a manuscript in preparation.

I have also mentored incoming graduate students to become qualified lab instructors in the Biology department (August 2023 & August 2024).

Evidence-Based Pedagogy

I am committed to continually developing my teaching through formal pedagogical training and research on teaching and learning. At Texas A&M University, I have participated in several programs focused on evidence-based undergraduate STEM education: 

• Introduction to Evidence-Based Undergraduate STEM Teaching — Completed the CIRTL Network MOOC and earned an Associate Certificate with Distinction.

• Academy for Future Faculty — Currently completing a professional development program focused on teaching, learning, and preparation for a faculty career.

• Teaching-as-Research Fellowship — Designed and implemented a classroom research project testing whether incorporating short wildlife documentary clips into animal behavior lectures improves student learning and engagement.

Pedagogical Research

Animal behavior courses can benefit from opportunities for students to engage with examples of how animals behave in natural contexts, yet providing firsthand experiences with animals can be logistically difficult in lecture-based courses. For my Teaching-as-Research Fellowship, I designed and implemented a classroom study testing whether short wildlife documentary clips could provide an accessible alternative. Through this project, I gained experience designing pedagogical research, developing quiz questions, and navigating the IRB approval process for human-subjects research. We compared student performance on concepts taught with and without accompanying documentary footage and surveyed students about their perceptions of the clips. Although we found no evidence that documentary clips improved quiz performance, students reported that the clips supported their learning and engagement. This work highlights the potential of documentary footage as a low-cost tool for bringing examples of animal behavior into the classroom.