I teach all things communication, all over the place.
As the Assistant Director of Visual Communication at Rice's Center for Academic and Professional Communication, I teach visual, oral, and (sometimes) written communication skills to a wide range of audiences in a wide range of formats. I am especially interested in teaching scientists how to communicate their research through effective data visualization and presentation design. For the past three years, I have co-led a 4-part summer workshop series on science communication skills that was targeted toward incoming PhD students in STEM fields because I believe all new graduate students deserve an opportunity to begin their graduate career with confidence in their communication skills. I also have extensive experience consulting one-on-one on communication skills with students and researchers in STEM, social sciences, business, and the humanities.
Teaching is more than just disseminating information.
My favorite book on teaching is bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress. This book has had immeasurable influence on my teaching philosophy:
Effective teaching models thoughtful, creative ways of understanding and interacting with the world. "It depends," has been the answer to most questions I've asked both inside and outside the classroom. Thus, I aim to prepare students to confidently tackle the complex, ambiguous questions they will inevitably encounter in their own lives. When I teach, I am always:
1) Creating a safe space to be wrong, express confusion, or disagree.
2) Designing teaching material that considers students' emotional and physical needs alongside their intellectual ones.
3) Demonstrating how learning changes the way that we think, the way we behave, and, always, the next question we ask.