I was raised mostly in sunny Sacramento, California. While growing up, I lived briefly in Jordan, Arkansas and Washington D.C. I have fond memories of playing at the river, riding my bike and climbing trees. I began my undergraduate degree at UC Davis and later transferred to the University of Washington (UW) in the picturesque city of Seattle. At UW, I received a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science in Near Eastern Studies, Physiology and Chemistry. I received my PhD in Chemistry from UC Irvine in 2008 while working under the supervision of John Hemminger and the mentorship of Sergey Nizkorodov and Barbara Finlayson-Pitts. I specialized in physical chemistry with a focus on surface science and atmospheric chemistry. During my years of research at UC Irvine, I imaged atoms using Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) in order to clarify mechanistic details of heterogeneous catalyst reactions of hydrocarbons on platinum. Please click on this link to read my full CV.
Teaching at CSU Channel Islands
I am currently teaching in the Chemistry Department at the beautiful campus of California State University, Channel Islands. I teach classes online and face to face on a variety of subjects in chemistry. I teach community based projects in many of my classes – where we identify how our class is connected to the community in terms of sustainability, energy and the environment. Projects include collaborating with an elementary school to create science experiments for the K-8th graders. Other project have worked on increasing the sustainability of our campus, such as planting pollinator gardens, running food drives for the school food pantry and obtaining funding for solar powered parking lot lights. Please click on this link to read more about these projects.
I also teach general and introductory chemistry. I enjoy the process of helping students gain confidence and skills so that they can increase their aspirations and become successful at their future endeavors. A key to student success is in part for the instructor to provide a positive atmosphere, where students are respected. I believe in providing my students’ access to a caring individual, where they can get extra help, mentoring and mistakes are viewed as an opportunity for learning and improvement. To me, teaching is a passion and a noble job.
Teaching Philosophy
As a professor, my role is to help guide my students in achieving success. However, I am not alone in this endeavor. Each student in the class plays a vital role in our learning community, where diversity is celebrated. Students are active participants in the learning, as well as the teaching. Each student will bring their own experiences and knowledge to the forum of learning. Students will do a hands on activity that will positively impact their own communities. Myself, the students and the community are like strands of a basket woven together. Together, we will support each other the journey to gain new knowledge and create something great. Ultimately, the goal is that students will cultivate intrinsic motivation in learning science – which is a skill that can last a lifetime. That knowledge can then be applied in a creative way to positively impact the community. This work can be showcased in the students’ own professional portfolios, enabling them to be competitive when applying for jobs. I envision graduates of CSUCI to not only receive a high-quality education, but also learn how to apply those skills as community leaders. Being an educator is more than just teaching for me, it is about fulfilling a need in our community and I am proud to do that as a CSUCI faculty.
