Undergraduate R Summer Course
I have served as lead instructor and co-instructor for Kellogg Biological Station’s “Introduction to data analysis in R” summer undergraduate workshop. The course introduces undergraduate researchers to coding in R, data wrangling, and making figures in RStudio, scripted statistical analysis, and biological interpretation of statistical results. In 2024, I and several other graduate students redesigned the workshop into a 7-week interactive course format. A pre- and post-assessment revealed that students made substantial gains in understanding basic R use, data wrangling, plotting, and biological interpretation of statistical output.
Insights from Trees: Teaching Critical Thinking
In collaboration with my co-advisor Marjorie Weber, I developed two modules for her innovative class “Insights from Trees: Science, Art, and Observation in a Noisy World”, taught at University of Michigan Biological Station in 2024, 2025, and 2026. One module brings the molecular wonder of photosynthesis to an ecological and landscape level scale, and uses a chloroplast abundance estimation exercise to help students confront uncertainty and the unknowable aspects of science and research, helping students move from recipients of knowledge to active investigators. The other module uses current news articles and official government and industry graphics from a wide range of viewpoints to teach students critical but challenging skill of identifying and articulating how numeric comparisons can be used to mislead and deceive readers.
Computers and Field Work
To help even the playing field of computer use skills, I designed a one and a half hour workshop on computer skills for field biologists, which I presented to Kellogg Biological Station undergrad reserachers in the summers of 2024, 2025, and 2026. The content covers everything from using Google Earth and Google Maps to record field locations to foundational computer skills such as file organization and file tree navigation that lay important groundwork for learning to code, yet are skills that many students don’t have entering a statistical coding or research context. I also cover field safety and data integrity topics including preparing to work without cellular connectivity, best practices around recording dates and safeguarding non-dates from automatic date conversion, and project workflows that ensure all data is backed up in multiple ways during and after fieldwork. This workshop was run as a prelude to the Introduction to Data Analysis in R workshop to put all students on equal footing in terms of file organization and core computer skills, while adding plentiful content specific to field researchers to engage students already familiar with foundational computer skills.