M.L. Linden, A.J. Heynen, R. Haslinger, M.F. Bear. Thalamic activity that drives visual cortical plasticity. Nat Neurosci. 2009 Apr;12(4):390-2

Salomon Curricular Mini-Grant Recipient - Brown University Dean of the College, to support course resources for NEUR1030 - Neural Systems (2022, 2023)

Barrett Hazeltine Citation for Excellence in Teaching, Guidance and Support, presented by the graduating senior class (2022)

Zern Endowment Recipient – Brown University Dean of the College, to support improvements to NEUR1030 – Neural Systems (2021)

Brown University Student Accessibility Services Access Ambassador Award (2021)

Brown University Provost’s Faculty Teaching Fellow (2020 - 2023)

Zern Endowment Recipient – Brown University Dean of the College, to support improvements in NEUR1030 – Neural Systems and NEUR1930N – Region of Interest: Amygdala (2020)

Brown University Karen T. Romer Award for Excellence in Advising (2020)

Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience Carol Ann Paul Educator of the Year Award (2019)

HHMI-Sheridan CURE Faculty Institute Course Funding (2019)

Barrett Hazeltine Citation for Excellence in Teaching, Guidance and Support, presented by the graduating senior class (2018)

Zern Endowment Recipient – Brown University Dean of the College, to support improvements to NEUR1030 – Neural Systems (2018)

Wolfram Summer School Participant (2017)

Barrett Hazeltine Citation for Excellence in Teaching, Guidance and Support, presented by the graduating senior class (2017)

Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, Advising and Mentoring in the Biological Sciences (2017)

Writing Across the Curriculum Faculty Seminar (2017)

Society for Neuroscience Early Career Policy Ambassadors Program (2017)

Brown University Elizabeth LeDuc Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Life Sciences (2016)

Brown University Teaching with Technology Model Course Award (2015)

ASMCUE Early-Career Faculty Travel Award (2015)

Brown University Undergraduate Council of Students Teaching and Advising Award (2014)

ASM Biology Scholars Research Residency – Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2014)

ASM Biology Scholars Research Residency Travel Grant (2014)

Brown University Summer Institute for Teaching and Technology (2012, 2014)

Elizabeth Leduc Award for Excellence in Teaching - Nominee (2014)

Teaching with Technology Award – Nominee (2014)

FLO: Facilitating Learning Online Certificate (2014)

Brown University Sheridan Center Junior Faculty Teaching Fellow (2013)

Brown University Pedagogy Grant for Contemplative Studies (2012)

Brown University Sheridan Teaching Certificate I (2012)

MIT School of Science "Spot" Award (2010)

MIT School of Science "Dot" Award (2010)

National Institutes of Health National Research Service Award Predoctoral Fellowship (2007)

Walle Nauta Award for Continuing Dedication to Teaching (2006)

Dean's Educational and Student Advising Award – MIT School of Science (2005)

Agnus MacDonald Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2005)

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2002)

National Physical Science Consortium Fellowship (2002 – declined)

MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences Award for Academic Excellence (2002)

Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society

Sigma Xi Research Honor Society

Society for Neuroscience (Government and Policy Affairs Committee Member 2018 - 2021)

Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education (PULSE; Recognition Circle Facilitator 2022 - present; Recognition Circle Administrator 2020 - 2022)

Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (Councilor 2011-2013, 2020-2022; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee Co-Chair 2021-2022 )

Editor for ERIN - Educational Resources in Neuroscience (2011 - 2014)

American Society for Microbiology

Textbook and Academic Authors Association

My teaching philosophy is centered on an ideal to create a safe, supportive, and scholarly learning environment for my students that centers anti-racism, inclusion and equity. I firmly believe that a student’s own learning is primarily their own responsibility, but my support can help them become an effective, reflective, life-long learner. I create this environment by challenging my students to think critically and become problem solvers, by encouraging them to participate in the classroom, by creating a supportive atmosphere in my interactions with them, and by working to actively increase the sense of belonging for students from marginalized identities. I also help students learn to learn and encourage them to reflect on their learning experiences. I refine my own teaching through the reflective process as well, and am constantly seeking professional development to improve my teaching and my students’ learning. I also enjoy working with faculty from my own institution and from a diverse range of other institutions to improve my own teaching and to spread evidence-based best practices.

Creating a learning environment begins with the syllabus. My syllabi are typically quite long so that I can describe the semester and welcome students to the course. I provide students with transparency regarding what the semester will be like from learning goals to assessments and assignments. I also welcome them into the class and introduce my values by including topics like a comprehensive diversity and inclusion statement and a description of and invitation to attend office hours. With the syllabus to set the stage, I work to create an inclusive classroom that honors the diversity of my students. I also strive to instill in each student that they belong in my classroom and that they belong as a scholar of the topic of my course.

Whether I’m leading a seminar with 15 students or lecturing to 150, my top priority is to encourage the students to participate in their own learning in the classroom setting. Depending on the size of the course, I encourage engagement in multiple in ways including through interactive technology like TopHat to gauge student understanding of concepts in real time, the use of small group work to facilitate the discussion, and the use of shared documents and other virtual spaces to help everyone feel comfortable engaging with the course materials. I also embed reflections throughout the semester to help the students not just reflect on the material but to also reflect on their role as a learner and as a member of the classroom community.

I reflect my values in my learning goals. By using both Bloom’s approach to establishing goals at various levels of cognitive processing and Fink’s approach to designing outcomes which humanize my students and address their growth in multiple directions, my course learning goals are designed to both help students to “think like a neuroscientist” but also to increase their metacognition, build classroom community, and strengthen each student’s sense of belonging both in the classroom and in the field in general. My learning goals also include broader ideals like communicating science to the public and learning about the diversity of scientists within the field in addition to discipline-specific content and competencies.

While in the classroom, I also hope to present myself in a way that students find approachable so that they feel comfortable attending my office hours. I feature the importance of office hours in my syllabus. I always set aside specific times that students can attend office hours, provide students access to private appointment slots, and accept requests for meetings at other times via email. Having embraced Zoom office hours during the COVID19 pandemic, I continue to provide some online-only office hour slots, as I believe some students are more comfortable meeting from behind their computer screen. Ideally, every student who wants to come talk to me will find no barrier to meeting with me. When students do meet with me, I try to get to know them as a whole person and allow them to know more about me as well. While I’m more than happy to help them work through challenges with course material, we often discuss other topics in neuroscience, what they plan to do in the summer, and what they may do when they finish their undergraduate education. It is of utmost importance to me that my office be a safe space where students can allow themselves to be vulnerable and get whatever assistance they need to succeed in my classroom and to succeed as a Brown student. This is the same approach I take with my advisees. This results in several students coming to me for advice, even when they are no longer in any of my classes! I love engaging with my students, so I thoroughly enjoy having this connection with them.

Because I provide my students with a safe and supportive learning environment, I feel comfortable pushing them to higher levels of mastery of their scholarship. I expect a lot from my students. While the learning objectives for each class depend on the course level, I always expect students to focus on understanding concepts (for example, students should be able to apply the concepts they have learned to new situations), and on analyzing and interpreting data (again, with an emphasis on analyzing and interpreting experiments that may be different from those seen in the classroom). In some cases, particularly in higher level courses, students should be able to predict experimental results and propose new experiments. To ensure that students are mastering these learning objectives, I assess students using primarily short answer and essay-style questions – even in my large lecture class. I teach students about Bloom’s taxonomy and provide study strategies for each level. Additionally, the majority of my students are already goal-oriented learners. To accommodate those students, and to encourage a goal-oriented approach for all students, I make all of my learning objectives explicit to the students as a way to help guide their study methods and approaches to learning and to help prepare them for my assessments.  In my upper level seminar, I am now experimenting with student-defined learning objectives to enhance their ownership of their own learning.

In general, I hope to increase the problem solving and critical thinking skills of my students, as working on these processes will be valuable to them regardless of what they do with their degree. Students are rarely asked to memorize. For some students, this requires them to modify the way they prepare for class and study for assessments. I am constantly refining my pedagogical techniques to attempt to ensure that all students can learn the material and perform well in my courses. Additionally, in some of my courses students are asked to reflect on their own learning throughout the semester. Observing the students’ reflections has opened up my eyes to how students are approaching their own learning and has shown me how much they can change on their own by just prompting them to reflect on what works for them and what doesn’t. I love using student reflection as a way to teach my students how to learn. I feel like I have succeeded in my job when my students can solve problems, think critically, and can continue to learn effectively for the rest of their lives.

Currently, my focus is on creating inclusive learning spaces, taking anti-racist approaches to pedagogy, and centering student belonging. In my larger course, we have added content to showcase diverse scientists and have created group problem solving questions centering the work of diverse scientists.  I am also currently experimenting with an “ungrading” approach, wherein the course is offered as mandatory S/NC.  Within this framework, students are asking to take responsibility for their own learning through an increase in the number of assessments, the opportunity to revise assessments after initial feedback is provided, and to reflect on their growth and study methods throughout the semester.  I apply the TILT framework for transparent assignments and assessments. I also work to reduce stereotype threat throughout my courses. Recently, I have begun teaching my upper-level students to identify biases that may be introduced to the science based on who did the work, and also based on limits placed on research subjects. I hope to not only be an inclusive, anti-racist educator, but to help students to become more inclusive and anti-racist in their future pursuits.