Teaching
My classrooms have ranged from a dirt floor in rural Nepal to a UC Davis lecture hall to a terminal window someone was afraid to touch. What carried across all three was the same handful of things.
Start where the learner is In rural Nepal, where women had inherited generations of silence about their own bodies, I taught the reproductive system with chalk and marbles instead of a lecture.
Learning by building People understand a thing once they have made it themselves, whether that is a bamboo polytunnel or their own analysis in R.
Mentor in both directions I have taught undergraduates, PhD students, postdocs and PIs, and the job is the same in every direction: make the next step feel possible.
Permission to try The barrier is rarely the material; it is whether someone feels allowed to try, break something, and ask again.
Courses
Feeding the World (SAS 2), UC Davis Teaching assistant. Facilitated debates on global food security for a class of 200, delivered a guest lecture, and led exam preparation. 2026
Global Climate Change (SAS 25), UC Davis Teaching assistant. Led weekly discussion sections for four groups of twenty students, guiding them through atmospheric science material and climate debates. 2022–2025
Animal Biology (ABI 50), UC Davis Teaching assistant. Laboratory sections for a class of 100 on nematode parasites of fishes and other taxa, with student-led sampling, analysis in R, and research papers. 2023
Nematology (NEM 100), UC Davis Teaching assistant. Laboratory sessions and discussions connecting nematode morphology and biology to real-world plant disease management. 2022
Mentorship
Undergraduate researchers Mentored three students in plant–nematode interaction assays and nematode genomics, guiding experimental design and data interpretation. 2022–2026
Graduate and postdoctoral training Trained two PhD students and one postdoctoral researcher with no prior bioinformatics background in Unix, RNA-seq and genome assembly workflows, and Apollo genome browser maintenance. 2022–2026
Field teams, Raleigh International, Nepal Led national and international volunteers on a livelihoods project, and ran community workshops on women's health and hygiene. 2017–2018
Public Teaching
Speaker and event lead, UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day Organized and hosted a public event on nematode biodiversity and plant health, with a talk and Q&A for K–12 students, growers, and the community. 2026
Nematology representative, Biodiversity Museum Day and Picnic Day Designed interactive displays on nematode diversity, life cycles and host–parasite interactions for public audiences. 2022–2024
