Teaching

Earth History & Evolution (GEO 211)

This class covers the evolution of the earth and its life from origin to present configuration, including the role of plate tectonics and major evolutionary patterns in the history of life. At the end of this course, I want students to be able to:

  1. Describe the major groups of life, their traits and evolutionary trends
  2. Summarize the major geological patterns and processes that shaped the planet
  3. Articulate how hypotheses are formed and tested in historical sciences
  4. Demarcate science from pseudoscience, and appreciate how evidence and reason drive scientific inquiry

Phylogenetics (GEO 401R/501)

How did whales evolve from land-dwelling ancestors? Why do some plant lineages diversify explosively while others barely change for millions of years? How can we trace the spread of a virus or the origin of a trait using DNA sequences? This course focuses on these and related questions about evolution. The first half explores phylogenetic inference — how to reconstruct evolutionary relationships from molecular, morphological, and genomic data. You’ll learn to align sequences, select models of evolution, build trees using cutting-edge methods, and critically evaluate the robustness of your results. Topics include maximum likelihood, Bayesian inference, bootstrapping, and the interpretation of molecular clocks. The second half dives into phylogenetic comparative methods — how to use evolutionary trees as a framework to test hypotheses about macroevolution and adaptation. We’ll explore how traits evolve, how diversification rates change through time, and how to test hypotheses about coevolving traits in the context of shared ancestry. You’ll gain experience with real datasets spanning microbes, plants, and animals, both extant and extinct. To accomplish this, we’ll use the statistical programming language R and prominent software packages, such as IQ-Tree, RevBayes, and BayesTraits, in a high-performance computing (HPC) environment.

Cell & Molecular Paleontology (GEO 402/502)

The recent discovery of ancient soft tissues, cells, and biomolecules is pushing the field of paleontology into an exciting new era. In this class, we’ll explore how tissues, cells, and biomolecules are recovered, analyzed, and interpreted to reconstruct the lives of long-extinct organisms, from dinosaurs to hominins. From sequencing the genomes of Ice Age mammals to detecting color pigments in dinosaur feathers, this course will connect Earth’s history to the cellular and molecular record, revealing evolutionary patterns invisible to traditional paleontology. Topics include paleohistology, molecular taphonomy, ancient DNA and protein analysis, isotope geochemistry, and the integration of molecular data with traditional paleontological, ecological, and evolutionary frameworks. The course will appeal to students across Earth Sciences and Biology — whether your passion lies in dinosaur biology, decoding mass extinctions, reconstructing ancient ecosystems, or tracing the biogeography and diversity of the human lineage.

Mentoring

Clear expectations, training plans, and quality assurance guidelines help all students thrive, and are essential for fostering equity and inclusion. A 2005 Sigma Xi survey found that US postdocs whose professional development was organized and managed were more satisfied and productive (~25%) than those with little oversight. All students should be actively managed and mentored, not just postdocs. Here are some resources to help. They are short and to the point (these things are often overly long, which inhibits their practical use).

Getting Started

Let’s Share

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