Elizabeth McCain Professor, Biology |
Education
Teaching Interests
My motivation for teaching is my love of the natural world and a desire to share this passion with others. In the classroom or lab environment I obviously share information and ideas with students, but I also provide the students' many opportunities to learn how to think about static information in a more analytical and synthetic manner with in-class work. I also create opportunities for the students to “own” a portion of the course, by having them carry out self-designed experiments or present to others a topic that is not part of the course material. This is best illustrated in my CUE, Scanning Electron Microscopy, where the students put all their science training to the test. Each student comes up with a novel biological question that can be investigated with the electron microscope. After a semester of designing the research and gathering and analyzing the data, the students present their findings, and passion for their research experience, to the Muhlenberg community in a poster session.
Research, Scholarship or Creative/Artistic Interests
My scholarly interests lie in understanding how a fertilized egg leads to something as beautiful and complex as an embryo, larvae, or adult. I am particularly interested in the development of marine invertebrates (e.g. worms and sea urchins) and have asked questions such as how cells acquire their final fate, how embryos respond to environmental toxins or stressors and the relationship between development and regeneration of body parts. In collaboration with Professors Amy Hark and Bruce Wightman, students and I have also investigated the role of specific epigenetic and genetic factors in the development of plants and worms, respectfully. One of my greatest joys is working with students on research questions generated by the students. I advocate for giving students the opportunity to uncover their passion for the natural work, developing their own research questions and, with my help, devising experiments to answer those questions in the laboratory. That experience is often the most powerful outcome of their undergraduate science education.