Teaching Philosophy

In addition to research, I am also passionate about teaching and mentoring. Having being a teacher and a mentor both as a grad student and as a postdoc, I firmly believe in the pivotal role that supportive teaching and mentoring play in empowering self-motivated active learning. During the summers of 2014-2015 I applied to and was given the opportunity to independently develop and teach an entire course on the topic of "Statistics for Quantitative Biology", during which I put extra emphasis on the scientific method.

By working with a big group of highly motivated undergraduate students coming from underprivileged communities, I found that Venn diagrams provided effective visual tools to teach valid deductive reasoning, hypothesis testing, and the qualitative "big pictures" in scientific thinking (1). I also found that the use of real-world research questions and data facilitated the understanding of probability theory, inferential statistics, and ultimately the scientific method. I believe in the tremendous impacts teaching has in promoting the understanding of science and the scientific method at a societal level, and the vital roles it plays in advancing my own research by actively engaging in stimulating discussions with a broad audience. After all, "by teaching, we learn".  

At Lehigh, I am currently teaching: 

Fall 2024: BIOS397 & BIOS431 (#Meiosis4Eva: Frontiers in Reproductive Cell Biology)

Spring 2025: BIOS421 (Molecular Cell Biology I)

Reference cited:

(1) Liu, C.*, Zhu, R. (2016) Set theory, logic, and probability: the integration of qualitative reasoning into teaching statistics for quantitative biology. CBE – Life Sciences Education. vol. 15 no. 4 le3. doi: https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-06-0184