Category: Featured

How on Earth does my watch keep the time? Let me open it to find out. Why are maggots and flies always around one another? Let me keep tabs on that dumpster over the next few weeks to figure it out. Why are crystals always so geometric? Let me grow some. The left side of my brain controls the right side of my body?? Awesome!…But why?? Let me do some research. It’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon – what does that mean? Time to watch Bill Nye the Science Guy, of course!

That was me as a kid, constantly curious about something or another. As such, science was always very interesting to me, and learning about living things and how they worked was always my favorite part of science. I also developed a deep fascination with the ocean and the creatures within. Yes, bears, lions, butterflies, and trees were all very interesting, but the organisms that lived in the ocean were mindboggling to me. Organisms came in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some of them had symmetries you never saw on land (i.e. the sea star…it’s shaped like a star AND it’s a living animal?? Is this real life???). Some of the organisms weren’t even symmetrical! Wait, animals can breathe oxygen in water, but some with gills instead of an air hole? Some of them don’t even “breathe” oxygen?? (Looking back on this time through the lens of a science educator, what was taking place was a significant breakdown and rebuilding of my conceptual framework for what was considered a living organism. At the time, though, this shift was experienced as a collection of mind explosions, if you will, that were ever more spectacular each time I learned about a different type of marine organism.)
I was born and raised mostly in Los Angeles, CA. However, my family moved to Las Vegas, NV when I was in high school, where my obsession with the ocean and my desire to be a marine biologist made little sense to my peers and some teachers. (For the record, because I always get asked – living in Las Vegas was very normal. In fact, it was quite boring, compared to the typical outsider’s view of Las Vegas. When asking, people often forget that I lived there as a teenager, which meant I was under 21, which meant I could not partake in any of the typical Las Vegas things, except Cirque du Soleil or other age-friendly shows).
I decided to go back to California for undergrad to study marine biology. During my first year at University of California, Santa Barbara I became a docent (educational guide) for the aquarium on campus. Giving educational tours to elementary and middle school kids was a highlight for me. Aside from learning child management and preventing enthusiastic little children from getting their fingers bitten off in the fish tanks they mistakenly thought were touch-tanks, this experience was when I knew I wanted to make a career out of teaching.
Also during undergrad I decided to partake in undergraduate research, which was one of the best things I could have done. I liked all of my biology/aquatic biology courses and getting first hand experience with some of the marine organisms in lab, but doing research was fulfilling (and challenging) in an entirely different way. I got to assist in ongoing research projects and then come up with questions and hypotheses of my own. This allowed me to go on road trips to field sites and learn about organisms in their natural habitat. I worked mainly with organisms that lived in the rocky intertidal and in tide pools (e.g. sea stars, mussels, snails, sea anemones, sea urchins), so I spent many bleary-eyed mornings watching the sun come up as my mentors and I collected organisms and data along the West Coast during low low tide (not to be confused with regular low tide). Sometimes we did this, all while trying to steer clear of wild boar (yes, wild boar on the beach of central California is as odd as it sounds). My experience doing research as an undergrad, exploring the fine-tuned relationship organisms have with the environment, and delving into the specific physiological mechanisms organisms have developed to respond to their environments, confirmed my decision to go to graduate school to study physiological ecology in marine invertebrates (purple sea urchins, to be exact). I had many more questions about this relationship that needed answers.
I spent the bulk of my time in graduate school researching and publishing papers on the physiological impacts of global climate change on marine invertebrates, specifically the impacts on growth and gene expression in purple sea urchin embryos and larvae. I also taught various lab and field courses during this time. Because I was very interested in education and teaching, and given my strong desire to participate in work that increases the engagement of diverse and underrepresented groups in science, I was also involved in science education research projects and a lot of science outreach with middle and high school students. My experiences in all these arenas ultimately led me to do research full-time in environmental science education after I finished my PhD. The science education research allowed me to combine my passions for science, education, and overall science literacy. My interest in science literacy stems from my belief that there is much to be gained from understanding the basics of science, how science works, and having the basic tools to grasp how science functions in society.
Now I am here at GW, where I am happy to be teaching in the Honors Program and Biology department. I’ll be teaching some of the Scientific Reasoning and Discovery courses with a focus on biology. Topics will range from general biology and society to more specific topics like marine biology and global climate change biology.
Please feel free to stop by my office in Ames 101P if you ever want to have a cup of tea and talk about biology, science, or just chat!