Teaching

I really enjoy interacting with students in general, and classroom-based teaching. I view my own thoughts and approaches to teaching as one long ongoing pedagogical experiment. Students in my courses will often see me trying new approaches to make their experience more engaging and memorable. At present, I teach three graduate-level courses and one undergraduate course.

Spring semesters:

POSC 630/ ANSC/GENE 629 – Genomics and Bioinformatics. 3 Credit hours. 

This course is designed to be a primer to the field of genomics and bioinformatics. The intended audience for this course is biological sciences /agriculture and life sciences graduate students who are interested in incorporating methods from genomics and bioinformatics into their research.

Click here for the Spring 2020 Syllabus  

This class meets on two days a week, and is typically 100% hands-on (after the first week). Meetings are Monday and Wednesday 10:20 AM to 12:10 pm, with a short break in between.

Tips & Notes (based on previous offerings)

  • Course pre-requisites: Undergraduate genetics or higher suggested .
  • Command line experience useful, but not necessary.
  • GENE 689 (command line) complementary but not overlapping (based on student feedback).
  • Recent (within 3 years old) laptop computer (Mac, Windows or Linux) works best.
  • All students will connect to a remote server for analysis, so you do not need a powerful laptop
  • No required textbook for this course, but the book Practical Computing for Biologists is recommended.
  • POSC 681 – Graduate Seminar. 1 Credit hour

    This required course on the graduate curriculum focuses on preparing for the job market and developing visual/oral presentation methods.

    EEBL 605 – Population and Quantitative Genetics. 1 Credit hour [Co-taught with Charles Criscione and Michel Slotman]

    This is a modular course focusing on introducing topics from population and quantitative genetics to Ph.D. students in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program.

    Fall semesters:

    POSC 414 – Avian Breeding and Genetics. 3 Credit hours

    This is a required course on the undergraduate curriculum. The focus on this course is to equip undergraduate students with the fundamentals of genetics and to relate them to applications in modern animal breeding and quantitative genetics.