Teaching and Mentoring
Throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies, I have been really fortunate to interact, learn, and get advice from multiple mentors. I firmly believe mentorship forms the foundation for academic development and that mentorship can come in different forms – there is no one-size- fits-all type of mentorship.
Over the years, I have pursued different ways where I can in turn, serve as a mentor to undergraduate and graduate students within the University and in the field of Animal Behavior in general. My mentorship experiences have spanned teaching in the classroom, to training students in laboratory methods and data analysis, giving feedback and advice to undergraduate students interested in pursuing Ph.D. in Primatology, as well as providing resources to fellow graduate students so that they can succeed in their research. Being a mentor doesn’t necessarily mean you are the one dispensing advice all the time. There is always something new that I learn from each mentoring relationship!
Instructor on record
ANTHRBIO 297 – Our struggle to socially distance: the how and why behind our propensity to be social. (Spring 2021). Syllabus available on request.
Graduate student instructor
ANTHRBIO 463 | ENVIRON 473 | PSYCH 463 – Statistical modeling and data visualization in R (Fall 2022) nominated for outstanding GSI award
ANTHRBIO 167 | ENVIRON 167 – Evolution, Environment, and Global health (Fall 2020)
ANTHRBIO 201 – Introduction to Biological Anthropology (Winter 2018)
ANTHRBIO 368 | PSYCH 368 – Primate Social Behavior (fulfills LSA Upper level writing requirement) (Fall 2016, 2017)
PSYCH 337 – Hormones and Behavior (Winter 2017)
Mentoring
I have mentored undergraduate students through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program at UM, helped train graduate students at the Beehner endocrinology laboratory on wet lab techniques for hormone extraction, storage, and quantification and assisted graduate students with data analysis and visualization in R. I have also trained field assistants in Ethiopia and Zambia in data collection and analysis techniques.
As an international student at the Department of Anthropology, I co-founded the Michigan International Students of Anthropology Association (MISAA) to help connect international students across the subfields within the department, build peer mentoring networks.
I have served as a mentor (since 2021) for the Animal Behavior Collective (ABC) initiative – a group of animal behavior researchers committed to the active support of animal behavior students from unrepresented communities. Currently, I am also part of the communications team at ABC.
Pedagogy
I obtained the Graduate Teaching Certificate from the Centre for Research on Learning and Teaching in 2021 and the Rackham Graduate DEI certificate in 2023 at the University of Michigan. My teaching and research practices strongly revolve around my identity and the core values of accountability and adaptability. I aim to continue incorporating new pedagogical tools by constantly adapting with the changing needs of students, adding in recent developments in pedagogical research, and taking accountability of the original intent and lasting impact of the field of Biological Anthropology at large.