I was honored to receive the Dean's Outstanding Performance Award for Professional Track Faculty in November 2021. The award recognizes exceptionally influential accomplishments in one, or both, the areas of research and teaching, with my award focused on teaching. This CHBE news article provides more information about the award.
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Online Teaching Strategies presented through AIChE Education Division Webinar and UMD ITL Conference5/24/2021 The transition to online instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic presented many challenges, but also provided opportunities to implement innovative teaching practices. I was invited to share my work on best practices for online teaching through an American Institute for Chemical Engineers (AIChE) webinar entitled "Practical Strategies to foster Student Learning, Engagement and Connection in the Virtual Classroom." The webinar was delivered on March 17, 2021 and can be viewed here. I presented a condensed version of the work for the University of Maryland Innovations in Teaching and Learning (ITL) Conference in May 2021. The presentation recording can be viewed here.
I have been selected to participate in the 2020 Elevate Fellows Program. The Elevate Fellows program is run through the UMD Teaching and Learning Transformation Center (TLTC) and aims to help faculty "identify key goals, challenges, or areas of improvement within their course, determine student-centered, evidence-based strategies to address this goal, and assess their redesigned course." The program includes an $8,000 stipend to fund the course re-design.
My course redesign will focus on CHBE410: Statistics & Experimental Design, and aims to 1) reduce achievement gap between students with different academic backgrounds, specifically those who have taken AP statistics and those who have not and 2) improve student engagement through active learning and inclusion of more chemical engineering-based and real-world examples. The NIIMBL Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Basics e-Learning Library that I developed along with collaborators at Merck and the University of Maryland Bioprocess Scale-up Facility is now live! The course can be accessed here. The course is designed for biopharmaceutical workforce professionals, but is also a great learning opportunity for students interested in a career in biopharmaceutical process development. UMD students can access the course for free- please email me if you are interested in signing up. Additional information about the NIIMBL project can be viewed here.
It was great to see my students graduate, heading off to industry, graduate school and even medical school!
I am excited to share that I received a "Fearless Teaching Seed Grant" through UMD's Teaching & Learning Transformation Center (TLTC) to support evaluation of CHBE100. This grant will fund a research associate to assist in quantitative and qualitative survey data analysis. Dr. Ganesh Sriram, undergraduate director in CHBE, serves as a co-PI for the research. A summary of the research proposal is provided below.
Assessing the impact of a new 1-credit First-year seminar on student confidence, competence and success in chemical engineering This research will investigate how a new 1 credit freshman chemical engineering seminar focused on career exploration and academic planning guided by peer mentors in a supportive and collaborative environment will impact short and long term student success in chemical engineering measured by retention, academic performance and participation in engineering-related career-preparatory activities.
After a successful pilot during Spring 2018, we have decide to offer CHBE 100, the new 1-credit freshman seminar again in Fall 2018 so that incoming ChBE freshman can take it prior to CHBE 101. The course has been renamed "Exploring ChBE." We will implement suggestions from the first offering and are excited for another great semester!
It was great to see my first class of students from 422/424 walk across the stage at engineering commencement. Congratulations CHBE class of 2018, you did it!
I was excited to serve as the faculty speaker for the OXE banquet this year. I shared my advice and experiences for students starting in the "real world" after graduation. It was a wonderful evening spent with ChBE students, faculty and staff!
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