Teaching & Outreach

Modified from this existing "bee learning lab" I had each student train two bees (n = 24 bees) to discriminate between either red and grey or between yellow and blue. Each bee was trained in a FMPER assay such that one color was rewarding (dipped in sugar water) and the other was unrewarding (dipped in water). Six bees were trained to each of the four colors. Choosing the rewarding color 50% of the time demonstrates that the bees were choosing randomly so had not learned their trained color.

Colors were chosen based on their measured reflectance so that they were be easily distinguishable to humans but the grey and red would be difficult for bees to distinguish between.

[see google sheet below for example data sheets]

Bee-havior lab_Student data sheets

Ecology Mini-Lessons

these are practice problems / mini lessons I created as a teaching assistant for discussion sections to complement the main lessons taught during lecture

each lesson links to a google slides document working through the practice problem

Food Chains

Food Chains_ecominilesson

Mark & Recapture

Mark & Recapture Pop Dynamics_ecominilesson

Genotype Frequencies

Genotype Frequencies_ecominilesson

Hamilton's Rule

Hamilton's Rule_ecominilesson

Phylogenetics Topology Parismony

Topology Parsimony_ecominilesson

Logistic Growth

Logistic Growth_ecologyminilesson

Metapopulation Colonization and Extinction

Colonization & Extinction_ecominilesson

Lotka-Volterra Competition Model

Lotka-Volterra Competition_ecominilesson

Outreach

High School Research Internship Program (HSRIP)

HSRIP is a long standing program that partners high school students from Crockett High School with graduate student mentors at UT Austin. Students come onto campus for two half days per week for the entire school year (with oral presentations at the end of end semester) to gain research experience in the effort to demystify science. I served as a mentor for 4 years (2021-2025), and as the program director for two years (2023-2025). As program director I served as the liaison between the high school and UT, ran student and mentor recruitment, and maintained program compliance with UT policies.

Pollination Sing-Alongs

Everytime We Touch - Cascada_pollination.mp4

Night changes - one direction_pollination.mp4

Juno - pollination.mp4

Closer - Teagan & Sara.mp4

[all clips are from Pexels stock videos or are my own]

Undergrad

Spiders: From Fear to Fascination Museum Exhibit

Prepared specimens for this traveling museum exhibit (including the Pompilid used to advertise a portion of the exhibit shown temporarily in Mann Library at Cornell University)

Opened at the Royal Ontario Museum in 2018 and was most recently displayed at the Witte Museum in 2025.

CUIC Educational Video

Spoke as one of the four undergraduate student employees at the Cornell University Insect Collection describing the structural color of butterflies like the blue morpho.

SnodWiggs Professional Development Trips

As president of the undergraduate entomology club (Snodgrass & Wigglesworth) at Cornell in 2019, led organizing of a spring break road trip to the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL and a fall break road trip to Penn State in State College, PA to visit other entomology departments and learn about their programs.

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