Teaching & Outreach

Some Thoughts on Teaching

I believe that there is a profound beauty in the study of mathematics and natural sciences. There is more to learn than can ever be done in one lifetime, which is to say that if one is curious about this incredible Universe in which we live, one will never run out of opportunities as a lifelong student of our cosmos. I still feel the same wonder and excitement in my research as I did when I was five and spent my time learning the order of our solar system's planets. This curiosity is central not only to my work, but is also a central tenant of who I am as a human.

My goal as a teacher is to inspire others to feel the same excitement as I do. It is the greatest feeling in the world for me to see my students' eyes light up when they have a breakthrough in understanding or when I am able to share a nerdy moment of "Wow, this is so cool!" with them. I aim to provide an environment in which every student realizes that no question is too big or too small and feels safe to explore science in whatever way best suits her or him.

As a student myself, I not only seek to learn more about nature, but I am also constantly and consciously improving my abilities in communication. As such, I would like to thank my teachers—my mentors, peers, students, and friends—who have been a part of my ongoing journey to become the best teacher that I can.

Yale Summer Program in Astrophysics

The Yale Summer Program in Astrophysics (YSPA) is an intensive four-week research program for talented and motivated high school students (mostly rising seniors) hosted at the Leitner Family Observatory and Planterium (LFOP). Past research projects have included NEO path determination, supernova light curve tracking, open cluster CMD analysis, and astrophotography. You can read about student experiences on the official YSPA Blog.

I attended YSPA in 2017, and it proved to be formative in my decision to pursue astrophysics research as a career. I returned to teach YSPA 2020 and 2023. The 2020 program was online, and my responsibilities included hosting daily office hours to review materials from lectures and problem sets and meeting weekly with my research group to discuss progress in the supernova and open cluster projects. The 2023 program was in-person. A typical day for me consisted of waking at 10 AM and walking to LFOP, grading or working on my research until lunch (12:30-1:30 PM), assisting with afternoon lab (1:30-5 PM), dinner (6-7 PM), aiding students with their research and observing (8 PM-2 AM), and coordinating transportation back to the dorms (arriving by 2:10 AM).

The application for YSPA 2024 has how passed, but if you are interested I would encourage you to apply in future years!

Summer Science Program

The Summer Science Program (SSP) is an intensive five-week research program for talented and motivated high school students (mostly rising seniors). SSP was founded in 1959 in response to the launch of Sputnik, originally as a means to seek and train young scientists to counter Soviet progress in the Space Race. While traditionally a program in astrophysics with a project tracking NEOs, SSP has recently launched programs in biochemistry and genomics to address the growing issue of microbial resistance. As of 2024, SSP hosts three campuses for astrophysics, two for biochemistry, and one for genomics per summer.

I served as a Teaching Assistant for the astrophysics project in 2021 in an online program associated with the New Mexico Tech campus. A typical day for me consisted of attending Zoom lecture for two hours to moderate the chat and answer questions, hosting a social activity during the lunch hour, coordinating with TAs and students at the other two campuses to schedule three remote observation sessions per night, and holding office hours for three hours in the evening to aid students in their research project and with problem sets.

The application for SSP 2024 has how passed, but if you are interested I would encourage you to apply future years!

Yale Department of Mathematics

Between September 2020 and December 2021, I served as a peer tutor or undergraduate learning assistant for three proof-based courses intended for those majoring in mathematics or closely related fields. In Fall 2020, I taught for MATH 301, a first course in functional analysis, and in Spring 2021 and Fall 2021, I taught for MATH 300 and MATH 255 respectively, both first courses in real analysis.

Real analysis is essentially a rigorous view of Calculus I and II. It is used to find solutions to questions about continuous functions. While Calculus I and II are generally concerned with finding numerical solutions to specific equations, real analysis tries to determine more general and abstract properties. It is my favorite branch of mathematics; I enjoy solving problems in real analysis as most can be boiled down to the same fundamental definition, but require creative thinking.

Functional analysis is an abstraction of calculus. An analogy would be to say that real numbers are to calculus as functions are to functional analysis. It is used to answer questions about general properties of functions and existence-based questions. Functional analysis has real world applications including economics and quantum mechanics.

Independent Lecture Series

Between August and October 2020, I developed and presented two three-lecture series on topics in special relativity and advanced classical mechanics. These lectures were given in the style of upper-level undergraduate courses to interested high school students to give them a sense of what courses in the physics major are like.

My lecture slides are available here. Feel free to use them for your own study or for pedagogical purposes. (If you use the slides I would love to hear from you! I would also ask that you please acknowledge my work if you present these slides to an audience or otherwise reference them.)

Splash!

Splash! is a program in which undergraduates teach interactive courses in any subject in which they are interested to local students at the middle and high school levels. For Splash! 2021, I developed and presented a course on relativity and co-developed and presented a course on astroparticle physics. For Splash! 2022, I developed and presented courses on exoplanets and mathematical "paradoxes".