Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. —Plutarch
Teaching is most effective when I am able to make a personal connection with students and bring my experiences from the field into the classroom. My training in nutrition, epidemiology, and public health has shaped my perspectives in teaching and mentoring. As an epidemiologist, scientist, and public health researcher, I envision my role is to mentor and inspire the next generation of leaders in the field of international nutrition and maternal and child health: to inspire students to find a nutritional problem that fascinates them, to challenge them to think critically about its burden and etiology, to evaluate scientific evidence, and to apply knowledge and skills to develop solutions to improve human health.
I enjoy teaching nutrition, epidemiology, and research methods to undergraduate and graduate students, and health care professionals in domestic and international settings. In my teaching approach, I emphasize establishing a strong foundation in biological sciences and quantitative methods, and the development of critical thinking and analytic skills. I use case studies and problem-based learning to evaluate and translate evidence to public health practice. I encourage individual leadership and collaborative work in multidisciplinary teams, in the application of research methods to improve public health.
In the Division of Nutritional Sciences, I teach NS3600 Epidemiology, the foundational methods course in our Global and Public Health Sciences undergraduate major, and the B-Vitamins section of NS6310 Micronutrients: Function, Homeostasis and Assessment, which focuses on key nutrients in one-carbon metabolism, vitamin B12, folate, and choline. I also serve as an instructor in our annual World Health Organization/Cochrane/Cornell Summer Institute for Systematic Reviews in Nutrition for Global Policy Making, and guest lecturer in courses in nutrition, epidemiology, and maternal and child health. I serve as faculty advisor for students in the graduate fields of nutrition and epidemiology at Cornell, advise undergraduate students in Global and Public Health Sciences and Human Biology Health and Society, and mentor undergraduate, masters, doctoral, and postdoctoral scholars as part of my maternal and child nutrition research program.
Courses Taught:
NS3600 | Epidemiology
NS6310 | Micronutrients: Function, Homeostasis and Assessment, B-vitamins
NS6200 | Translational Research and Evidence-based Policy and Practice in Nutrition
BIOG4990 | Independent Undergraduate Research in Biology
NS4010 NS6010 | Empirical Research