I love scoping out bookstores when I visit new cities. While traveling for the SABER biology education research conference, I found a copy of this charming biology textbook that is a few years shy of a century old! This “New Biology” isn’t quite so new anymore!

Turnip is helping me with my poster for SABER. You can see by the look on his face that he is also alarmed at how confusing the arrows in ecology diagrams can be! If you’re at SABER, stop by my poster on Thursday in room STEM 2004!

A gray girl in the green grass

Turnip is intrigued by deer 🦌

A little cat who loves big adventures

What does Jeff Goldblum have to do with DBER? Admittedly, not a lot! But his expressions were a fun way to help me quickly communicate about challenges faced by DBER faculty when I only had 3 minutes for a "Shark Tank" style presentation at SABER East!

🐹🌱👽 Animals, plants, and aliens can provide novel ways to engage students' critical thinking about physiology core concepts, yet these non-human examples remain an underutilized tool in human physiology textbooks. Read more in our new paper: doi.org/10.1152/adva...

I had great conversations with folks across campus during Towson's AI Teaching and Research Symposium! It was fun to hear how faculty from different disciplines found value in the idea of using AI errors as teaching tools. Read more about this research: doi.org/10.1128/jmbe...

AI biology diagrams can be comically "bad", but they can be quite good as teaching tools! Understanding what makes a diagram wrong is as important as understanding what makes it right. Read about how to teach with "bad" AI biology diagrams in my new publication! doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.00321-25

When you are going to an entomology conference, you need to dress the part! 🪲

When I travel for work, I try to see one thing unique to the city I’m visiting. I’ve been invited to Harrisonburg, Virginia to share my research at the James Madison University Biology seminar and I fit in a tour of a nearby cave while I’m here!

A boy cat enjoying his evening stroll

🐛 One of my favorite things about being a scientist is that you never quite know where your research will take you — I'm headed to my first entomology conference next week! I'm excited to be part of this great line up of talks and I'm super curious to learn more about bugs while I'm there! 🪲

My undergraduate research advisor, David Bowne, brought me to a Mid-Atlantic Ecological Society of America meeting for my very first research presentation. A decade later, I've reignited a collaboration with David and I'm back at Mid-Atlantic ESA sharing my research as an assistant professor!

Ecologists love arrows. Ecology textbooks contain thousands of them. ➡️↔️🔄 If you're attending the Mid-Atlantic Ecological Society of America meeting in Towson this weekend, stop by my poster to chat about why we should be thinking carefully about the ways we use arrows to teach ecology.

I'm doing some tactile teaching today! 🧬 I'm using 3D-printed DNA, along with some more traditional textbook diagrams, to help my students compare and contrast between different representations of DNA and understand the strengths and limitations of each type of model.

🌱🐈‍⬛🌱

Are we assessing biology knowledge or the ability to search the internet for biology facts? We found that nearly half of students who took an assessment outside of class reported using a resource (like the internet) and those who used a resource often had higher scores. doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.00198-25

Is music taste inherited? My Dad gave me a box of records he found in the attic and I couldn’t believe how many I already had in my own collection!

Turnips

🧬 New publication! 🧬 The apparent simplicity of common visual models in biology can mask deep conceptual challenges for learners. We summarize empirical evidence for this ‘illusion of clarity’ and describe resources that may help instructors dispel this illusion. www.cell.com/trends/genet...

Let’s Dance

A home is a little happier with Jeff Goldblum in the room

How do we know what biology students know? I'll be sharing a bit about how biology education research gives us insights into what students learn and remember from introductory biology courses during this Friday's Biological Sciences Seminar at Towson University.

Cat on a Cat on a Hot Tin Horn

25 Cats Name Sam and One Gray Turnip

A colleague told me I’m the “Elton John of DBER” and I can’t think of a higher compliment

Celebrating Halloween at a biology teacher conference with some spooky scary skeletons 💀

I’m in a new city for NABT, so that means new opportunities to color coordinate! My conference outfit matched the hotel hallway!

A little fella looking for snacks