Teaching

Experience:

Assistant Teaching Professor of Physics at Villanova University (June 2023 – Present)

I am beginning my fourth year in the following Continuing Non-Tenure Track Assistant Teaching Professor position. In past three years I have taught both the life-sciences lecture and lab service courses (PHY 1100, PHY 1101, and PHY 2413) as well the equivalent engineering service courses (PHY 2400, PHY 2402, and PHY 2403). My lecture courses follow a 2 lecture (augmented with active learning pedagogy where possible) and 1 recitation (problem-solving session) weekly schedule. I have also taught the physics-major modern physics lab course, PHY 2417, for which I developed the following YouTube video series. Some of my most recent syllabi are available for viewing here: PHY 2417, PHY 2400, and PHY 2403. All of my courses’ syllabi, exams, homework assignments, student course evaluations, and any other course material, such as constructive criticisms and positive comments I solicit (via extra credit) from students throughout the semester to make changes to my pedagogy on-the-fly, are available upon request. My most recent performance evaluation (sent to my chair and dean) can be viewed here, and recent peer teaching evaluations can be found here. Since arriving in this position, apart from primary teaching duties I have:

served on the Fulbright campus committee evaluation (CCE) committee every year — preparing students for success in their application process through reviewing and commenting on the students’ resumes and application essays as well as improving their interview skills,
served on a hiring committee with 2 colleagues to hire another continuing non-tenure track faculty member — beginning with 61 applications, conducting 3 weeks of Zoom interviews, and hosting 2 on-campus interview days,
participated in interviews associated with 3 other hirings in the department over the last 3 years,
assisted roughly 15 students over the years with letters of recommendations to NSF REU programs, graduate schools, and internships as well as provided long-term hand-on assistance with honing graduate school application and Fulbright application materials for 3 physics majors,
assisted in organizing the first annual physics alumni symposium — a day of celebration of student and faculty research full of talks, posters, tours, and invited speakers,
organized 2025’s annual fall physics student research symposium where my PHY 2417 students completed their final project — a poster session attended by physics students and faculty members,
been elected to serve as our department’s sustainability representative for the college’s sustainability initiatives,
been elected to join the department’s DEI committee,
joined 2 colleagues and our department chair in forming a social media committee,
volunteered with STEM colleagues and our dean of research at a local middle school science fair,
volunteered with students weekly during the 2024-2025 school year at St. Francis Inn Soup Kitchen in high-need area of Philadelphia about 45 minutes from campus,
organized a physics department service group for the university’s St. Thomas of Villanova day,
organized a table at the Major Fair every year to excite undecided freshman into trying physics,
been invited by the dean of the college to speak at a new-faculty orientation event,
learned more about collaborative teaching through working with the coordinators of courses I have taught in an effort to make student experiences across different sections of a course as similar as possible (such as keeping elements of the course like self-correcting quizzes and exams as well as Poll Everywhere — a real-time response software to facilitate active learning) while still teaching in a manner that honored my particular pedagogic skillset (such as utilizing simulations and making connections to lab experiments to facilitate stronger connections to theoretical concepts);
made connections across departments through maintaining friendships initiated during faculty orientation, consistently meeting with faculty mentors paired to new faculty, learning how teaching at an Augustinian institute reflects in others’ pedagogy at Faculty Lunchtime Dialogues, as well as working with Stephen Green at Villanova’s Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship on using laser cutting for a research project, and
explored spiritual growth through working with Bryan McCabe and John Edwards by attending Mindfulness Mondays and meeting regularly to discuss spiritual direction and attend off-campus men’s meetings through the Illuman group.

Visiting Professor of Physics at Claremont Mckenna College, Scripps College, and Pitzer College (July 2022 – May 2023)

I was hired for the following Visiting Professor of Physics position for a one-year appointment. In the fall semester I taught: PHYS 033L, Principles of Physics — an integrated lecture and lab introductory course for physics majors (as well as students whose major requires calculus-based physics) on classical mechanics and thermodynamics; as well as PHYS 101, Classical Mechanics with Computational Applications — a senior-level classical mechanics course for physics majors on the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms. My syllabi for both 033 and 101 are available for viewing. In the spring semester I taught PHYS 031L, General Physics for the Life Sciences — a larger lecture class for non-majors (though still calculus-based) on electromagnetism, waves, and modern physics; as well as multiple sections of the lab associated with PHYS 031. My syllabi for both the lecture and lab of 031 are available for viewing. All of my courses’ syllabi, exams, homework assignments, student course evaluations, peer teaching observations, and any other course material, such as constructive criticisms and positive comments I solicit (via extra credit) from students throughout the semester to make changes to my pedagogy on-the-fly, are available upon request. Apart from primary teaching duties, in this position I have:

assisted fellow incoming faculty member (Professor Tiziana Di Luccio — our new experimental physics educational specialist) with organizing and improving introductory physics lab curriculum;
sat in on the department’s 3-2 economics-engineering advising session;
assisted Scripps College and Pitzer College’s fellowship advisors (Deans Jennifer Armstrong and Nigel Boyle respectively) with information sessions for the Fulbright Scholarship; completed 7 campus committee interviews and evaluation (CCE) forms for students applying for the Fulbright at Scripps and Pitzer, assisted a student of mine with all aspects of her Fulbright application aimed at doing condensed matter theory research in Hungary; assisted 2 additional students at Pitzer (who were not in my campus committee evaluation batch) with their applications;
attended Pitzer College, Keck science department, and Keck’s physics discipline faculty meetings — where the Keck science department meeting in particular gave me great insight into the administrative side of running a complex department — one across multiple disciplines and multiple colleges
participated in the department’s weekly informal physics student-faculty lunches — chatting with students and/or colleagues as well as presenting my research topics;
held open office hours every week for any student in the department to ask questions about applying to graduate school;
gave a talk on general relativity and my research to students and faculty of the Claremont Colleges through the following seminar series,
developed two thermodynamics labs to make up for a lack of lab experiments on that topic in the department given that the PHYS 033 class is designed to have a 2/3 classical mechanics and 1/3 thermodynamics split,
in addition to having my classes occasionally observed by peers/supervisors, I observed their classes to take in as much pedagogy expertise as possible,
graded senior thesis poster presentations for the department,
collaborated with co-instructors on: revitalizing the lab sections for the physics for life sciences course to incorporate a software called Perusall for at-home reading and collaborative note-taking using non-copyrighted materials such as OpenStax, choosing and improving which lab experiments we do, as well as on synchronizing both my lecture section, the other instructors lecture section, and lab experiments to not only form a cohesive progression of topics so that nothing is covered in lab before lecture (and vice versa) but also to ensure exam weeks were the same between lecture sections and that there was no experiment for the lab sections that week, and
won Scripps College’s Creating Community Award, a fund which has the goal of facilitating student-professor interactions outside of the classroom to build stronger relationships, both academic and personal. The review committee encourages applications that involve non-course-related activities that foster dialogue and create community. I proposed and won the award to fund a leisurely hike around the popular Claremont Hills Loop with my class followed by/or preceded by a meal out at a restaurant.

Teaching Assistant at Stony Brook University (August 2020 – May 2022)

I was a graduate TA (lead instructor) for the Physics 133 and 134 lab courses in the fall and spring of 2020-2021 respectively. 133 covered experiments in mechanics (projectile motion, conservation laws, angular momentum, waves) and thermodynamics, while 134 covered experiments in electricity and magnetism (EM fields, Lorentz force, circuits) and optics. Further details on the courses can be found on the 133 webpage, and 134 webpage. The students were responsible for performing, analyzing, and communicating the results of our experiments every week. Some of the novel aspects of experimental science my students learned in theses courses include: quantifying uncertainty, using LoggerPro software, using an oscilloscope, and creating electric circuits. Apart from the standard learning goals, my altered rubric facilitated the learning of the following: writing scientific abstracts, formatting mathematical formulae and even entire lab reports in LaTeX typesetting, and making scientific figures in softwares like Inkscape or Sketchpad.io. I kept the following documentation of the course: my rubric, my supplementary teaching materials in the form of intro Zoom videos recorded for the students prior to lab, LaTeX tutorials and write-ups of any derivations students struggled with, my Blackboard announcements, frequency distributions I made to inform my grading, and my students’ anonymous mid-semester and end-of-semester feedback on my teaching. I have also written 3 letters of recommendation for pre-med students of mine, an example being the following. COVID social distancing practices (two classrooms, plastic dividers between lab partners) were maintained in the course.

I taught the Physics 121 lab course in the fall 2021 semester, which is an algebra-based version of the calculus-based Physics 133 that I taught last year. I specifically requested this course to be challenged to teach the same material to a different demographic of students. My blackboard announcements mirror the style of my previous year’s announcements, and my intro videos on Zoom at the beginning of class do as well. My students’ anonymous course feedback is also available.

I taught the fully online version of the Physics 134 lab course over the summer of 2021. I am currently teaching this again in the spring of 2022 but now have access to the ioLab device needed for the course thanks to a previous student of mine sharing theirs. This will allow me to expand my role beyond what I was confined to last summer to include doing all the labs myself, just like with my in-person instruction. The intro videos with this equipment are included in my 134 YouTube playlist (which include videos from previously mentioned classes above and from the following mentioned tutoring below).

CSTEP Tutor at Stony Brook University (June 2021 – August 2021)

The Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (CSTEP) aims to support historically underrepresented and economically disadvantaged Stony Brook University students who want to enter into science/technology through tutoring, advising, and research/internships. As a tutor, I met weekly with a student in the program who was taking the introductory physics courses 131 and 132. I prepped solutions to homework/exam problems the student struggled with, and then we walked through them together over Zoom, the latter half of which can be viewed in my 134 YouTube playlist.

WISE High School Mentor at Stony Brook University (August 2021 – May 2022)

Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program aims to increase the number of women in science, math and engineering fields. The WISE high school program brings local high schoolers to campus for labs, experiments, and other projects twice a month during the academic year. As a mentor, I craft lesson plans (conducive to the virtual nature of the program due to covid during the fall semester) based on physics simulations that focus on mechanics, thermodynamics, and electrodynamics. Created by the Nobel Prize winner Carl Weimann (who recently spoke virtually at Stony Brook about the perception of talent and disparities in science) PhET is a collection of interactive simulations that give students the abilities to work through physics experiments by controlling all the aspects of an experiment from their Internet browsers. In order for the students to have at least one “real” lab, I organized a pendulum lab material kit to be sent to the students’ homes in the fall semester, and an electric field plotting kit this spring semester. My fall and spring lesson plans and session notes include precisely what was covered.