Welcome

Throughout this document, you can find my resume, personal teaching philosophy, and my answers to essential questions that teachers should consider. Look through the sections to see different lesson plans and assessments that I have made and am very eager to implement in the near future.

I am originally from De Pere, Wisconsin, where I graduated from De Pere High School in 2013. During my high school career, I was heavily involved in our local robotics team, and the Boy Scouts of America. Between these two organizations, I developed a passion for science, and nature and I wanted to find a way to share this passion with everyone I could. I first did this by becoming a camp counselor at Bear Paw Scout Camp. Over my two years as a counselor, and two years as the area director of Outdoor Skills, I taught over ten different merit badges to thousands of scouts and scouters. From this experience, my passion for teaching was founded.

After high School, I attended Michigan Technological University, where I majored in physics and graduated in 2017. During my time there, I was a Physics Demonstration Specialist, and the Teaching Lab Manager for the physics department.

For these positions, I led a small group of students to make sure that the physics teaching labs were set up on time for students, and maintained the equipment for the labs. I also helped design and build physics demonstrations that are used during departmental lectures. Through the Michigan Tech chapter of The Society of Physics Students, I was involved with many student outreach programs, where we would bring physics demonstrations and help get young students and their families interested in STEM. Some demonstrations involved showing properties of friction (Top), to showing how the air around us exerts a lot of pressure (Bottom). I was also involved with the Michigan Science Teaching and Assessment Reform (Mi-STAR) which seeks to develop a more integrated science curriculum for middle-grade students (grades 6-8). I focused on a lesson that involved showing the change in potential and kinetic energy of a pendulum, and finding ways it would be able to be executed in low-income schools. The content of this lesson can be found by going to the Lessons and Assessments Tab.

For these positions, I led a small group of students to make sure that the physics teaching labs were set up on time for students, and maintained the equipment for the labs. I also helped design and build physics demonstrations that are used during departmental lectures. Through the Michigan Tech chapter of The Society of Physics Students, I was involved with many student outreach programs, where we would bring physics demonstrations and help get young students and their families interested in STEM. Some demonstrations involved showing properties of friction (Top), to showing how the air around us exerts a lot of pressure (Bottom). I was also involved with the Michigan Science Teaching and Assessment Reform (Mi-STAR) which seeks to develop a more integrated science curriculum for middle-grade students (grades 6-8). I focused on a lesson that involved showing the change in potential and kinetic energy of a pendulum, and finding ways it would be able to be executed in low-income schools. The content of this lesson can be found by going to the Lessons and Assessments Tab.

I finished my Master’s in Teaching at Piedmont College through the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship in 2018. Piedmont College, in partnership with the fellowship are working to reform how teachers are prepared for teaching in schools, and bring talented, well-trained STEM teachers into high-needs schools across the nation. The college and fellowship do this by developing a curriculum that incorporates the teaching fellows being involved and inside a high-needs school for a full year, while still doing a rigorous coursework schedule to get the fellows teaching full time by the beginning of the next academic year. I worked with Sims Academy of Innovation and Technology, where I was a partner teacher for the 2017/2018 year teaching biology, environmental science, and Mechatronics.

While I have a primary passion of teaching, this mainly is attributed to making sure students and educators have a safe and functional learning environment that they know how to use in whatever way they see fit. One of my favorite hobbies is working with electronics and micro-controllers, which are foundation of modern computers. From 2018 to 2022, I had the unique opportunity to be a STEM teacher at the Barrow Arts and Science Academy in Winder, Georgia. In this position, I taught high school students how to use and maintain a wide variety of electrical and mechanical systems. I have been able to further tune my skills of instructing and training students being an adjunct Mechatronics instructor at Lanier Technical College. With both of these being rigorous lab-based programs, I have developed and maintained a variety of lab scenarios to help students learn the knowledge and skills they need. Due to COVID-19, I have also had to find unique approaches on how to teach these programs in hybrid and fully online settings as well. While I was pursuing my physics degree at Michigan Technological University, while conducting undergraduate research in quantum optics, I was the teaching lab manager and a lecture demonstration specialist for the physics department. In this time, I was in charge of leading a group of students in the setup and take-down of the teaching labs on a daily basis based on what the teaching labs needed for that day. I was also one of the main individuals that led the maintenance of lab equipment, along with designing and maintaining demonstrations that were used in department lectures.

While I was teaching at the Barrow Arts and Science Academy, one of the large joys in my life was being the head coach of FIRST Tech Challenge team: 18597, the RoboClovers. Our team moved from FIRST Robotics Competition to FIRST Tech Challenge this year due to financial restrictions and the uncertainty of the competition season because of COVID-19, but we have made the best of it by still making a competitive robot and helping young engineers and scientists develop the technical and leadership skills they will need in their future.

In 2021, I became a Senior Instructional Lab Coordinator at Purdue University for the college of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Here, I was working on developing and deploying ECE 20007, the Introductory Electronics Lab course for the department, along with coordinating 20 sections of the course in Fall 2021. This course has the unique situation of not just being for ECE students, but also mechanical engineering, and interdisciplinary students. This means that this course has to meet the needs of two rigorous engineering programs that need different levels of depth and practical knowledge of electronics. In the Fall of 2023, we deployed a new set of labs that will emphasize practicality regardless of the desired discipline of the student. The fantastic part of introductory electronics is that so much can be applied at such an early phase of the learning, and showing students these simple, yet universal applications, along with exploratory projects allows for any student to see the usefulness of the content, and develop a passion to go with it.

In 2022, I took the exciting step of pursuing a PhD in Engineering Education at Purdue University. In this time, I hope to further find new and exciting ways to help students of all ages learn about science and engineering. I have had the unique opportunity in my professional life to work with a wide variety of age groups, skill levels, and educational backgrounds; I plan to further work on making sure that those in the K12 space are further prepared to enter into a university or technical program, while still ensuring those that plan to enter the workforce or other fields are still leaving with effective and practical knowledge to help in a variety of disciplines.

As of fall 2024, I am now a lecturer for the College of Engineering at Purdue University. In this role, I have taken on teaching our First-Year-Engineering courses, primarily ENGR 133, the program associated with our EPICS teams, a project-based engineering program that empasises community involvement in the projects. I am also mentoring two EPICS project teams focused around asistive technology for different physical and learning disabilities, and creating exibits for the Indianapolis Speedway Museum.

Don’t worry, I am still teaching electronics! I am also lecturing for our ECE fundamentals courses, infact, the lecture that is associated with the labs I used to run. I am also developing new lab courses focused on reverse engineering electronic products in conjuntion with my PhD.