Phone 715-232-2630
Office 302C Jarvis Hall-Science Wing

Brief Biography: Motivated, engaging leader with a clear focus on improving the student experience. Through respectful and open communication, employs inclusive decision-making techniques that value personal strengths, build consensus, empower stakeholders, and inspire team success. Encourages faculty to take risks while pursuing their passions.

Teaching Interests: Innovative, award-winning educator who employs classroom approaches based on the current education and cognitive psychology literature. Uses and develops cooperative, problem-based, case study, and open-ended inquiry techniques to inspire student learning. My single-minded focus is on students, their learning and development. I derive my classroom practice from the educational literature and our understanding of cognitive psychology. I employ active, small group strategies to promote student learning in a supportive environment. I inspire students by encouraging them to make and share meaningful scientific discoveries. My teaching also includes efforts to improve the quality of science education. I regularly present faculty development workshops and study the impacts of research experiences on student learning and development. I win awards for my teaching.

Research Interests: Experienced scientist and discipline-based education researcher who provides outstanding opportunities for original, authentic student exploration and discovery. Studies bacterial biodiversity while measuring student learning and development in response to classroom-based research experiences. Continuously funded through extramural grants, the goal of my scholarship is to provide students with original, authentic research experiences. Together, we explore the genetic diversity and activity of microbes in nature. I employ apprenticeship and in-class training approaches, and compare these methods using scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) tools to better understand student learning and development in response to original, authentic research experiences

Professional Interests: Motivated colleague with a strong record of leadership in community building and research collaboration. Committed to sharing intellectual contributions through outreach and service. I serve many organizations, providing intellectual contributions at local, regional, and national levels. My overall goal is to improve the quality of science in my field and the quality of science education. For UW-Stout Collaborative grants: $1,550,954- Total External Funded Grants and Contracts $1,163,968- Total Internal and External Funded Grants and Contracts (to UW-Stout) $1,718,280- Overall Total Internal and External Funded Grants and Contracts