Teaching

Courses and activities at UT Austin

One of ten faculty members in the College of Natural Sciences awarded the “CNS Teaching Excellence Award” (2022)

One of ten faculty members at UT Austin awarded the “Texas Ten” teaching award (2020)

2021- now – Graduate student advisor (together with J. Lewis-Peacock) for students in the Institute for Neuroscience, INS.

Volunteer courses

2021-now – Writing workshop for junior faculty, postdocs, and students
Topics: Writing scientific papers and literature reviews
Role: course creator, director, and instructor
(1-2 h/wk, junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate, and undergraduate students from different disciplines)

2018-now – Women in Neuroscience (summer internship for women from underrepresented minorities)
Topics: Research skills, the perils of science (experimental design, statistics, and cognitive illusions), writing a resumé, preparing for scientific carreer and networking, psychiatry and neurology).
Role: coordinator of the didactic portion of the summer internship
(1-3 h/wk, high school or undergraduate students, mostly from underrepresented minorities)

Undergraduate courses

2019-now – NEU 367S (formerly NEU 337), Analytical skepticism
Topics: Seeing, quantifying, and presenting data, Cognitive illusions, Scientific bias, Approaches to testing a hypothesis (experimental design), Assessing probabilities, Quantifying and analyzing data, Normalizing data
Role: Course creator, director, and instructor (check out award for this course). This course was also presented as a talk at CSICon in Las Vegas, 2022.
(3 h/wk, undergraduate students, mostly from the Neuroscience program)

2014-now – UGS 302 & UGS 303 Young people and drugs
Topics: animal models of addiction, factors that enhance vulnerability to addiction
Role: Instructor (Course director: Dr. L. Holleran)
(~3-6 h/yr, first year undergraduate students from various Colleges).

2014-2020 – NEU 365W, Neurobiology of addiction
Topics: Psychostimulants, and (from 2019) animal models of addiction and principles in pharmacology
Role: Instructor (Course director: Dr. R.A. Harris (2014-2019) and Dr. R.O. Messing (2020))
(~3-6 h/yr, undergraduate students from various Colleges)

2018 – NEU 335, Neural systems II
Topic: Drug addiction
Role: instructor (Course director: Dr. B. Zemelman)
(2 h/yr, undergraduate students in the Neuroscience program)

Upper-division courses (College of Pharmacy, College of Natural Sciences, Dell Medical School)

2021 – Addiction fellowship
Topic: Neurobiology of addiction
Role: director of portion “neurobiology of addiction” & lecturer (Course director: Dr. J. Nguyen)
(~7 h/yr, Students in the “addiction fellowship” from Dell Medical School)

2020 – PGY1 Adult Psychiatry Curriculum
Topic: Basics of evidence
Role: lecturer (Course director: Dr. S. Kotara)
(~4 h/yr, 1st year Psychiatry Residents from Dell Medical School)

2020 – MS3 ILD Innovation, Leadership, and Discovery, Research Distinction Track
Topic: Research design
Role: lecturer (Course directors: Dr. S. Cox, Dr. B. Nelson)
(~6 h/yr, 3rd year medical student from Dell Medical School)

2020-now – NEU 185 and PGS 185 Responsible conduct of science
Topic: Data management
Role: guest lecturer (Course director: Dr. R.A. Gonzales and L. Natividad)
(~1.5 h/yr, graduate student from various Colleges)

2020 – NEU 394P, Career development for neuroscientists
Topic: The Academic System: Who is hired?
Role: guest lecturer (Corse director: Dr. R.A. Harris)
(~1.5 h/yr, graduate students and senior undergraduate students from various Colleges)

2016-2019 – PHM 480C, Physiology, Pathophysiology, and Drug Targets
Topics: Seizures, Parkinson’s Disease, dementias, schizophrenia, addiction, anxiety, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, compare and contrast neurological and psychiatric disorders, case studies
Role: Instructor (Course director: Dr. C. Van Den Berg)
(7 h/yr, PharmD students from the College of Pharmacy)

2017 – S2017IPE Foundations for Inter-Professional Collaborative Practice
Topics: small-group collaborative exercises on Motivational interviewing, Addiction care,
Error disclosure, Palliative care, applying TeamSTEPPS to transitions of care,
Inter-professional collaborative practice
Role: Instructor (Course director: Dr. V. Young)
(~18 h/yr, Medical, PharmD, Nursing, and Social Work students)

2016-2017 – NEU 482T Principles in Neuroscience
Topic: Neuropharmacology
Role: Instructor (Course director: Dr. D. Brager)
(~2 h/yr, PhD students from the Institute for Neuroscience)

2015-2016 – NEU 482T Principles in Neuroscience.
Topic: Grant writing
Role: Instructor (Course director: Dr. D. Brager)
(~8 h/yr, PhD students from the Institute for Neuroscience)

2014-2017 – PGS 388K & NEU 385L, Pharmacological mechanisms of addiction
Topics: Animal models, Sedatives, Alcohol, Psychostimulants, Inhalants and solvents, Cannabinoids, Nicotine, Opioids, Hallucinogens, Genetics & Genomics, Medications and treatment, Hot topics
Role: Course co-director and instructor (with Dr. R.O. Messing)
(~3 h/week, PhD students from the Pharmacology and Toxicology, Institute for Neuroscience, or Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology Programs).

2014-2017 – PGS 388K, PGS 380S, Principles in Experimental Design & Biostatistics
Topics: Cognitive illusions, Experimental design theory and practice, Why we need statistics, Describing & presenting data (written, graph, oral), Introduction to statistics (focus on ANOVA, Chi Square, Confidence intervals, Pearson and Spearman Correlations, Power analysis), Normalizing data theory and practice, Brief notions on Multivariate analysis
Role: Course creator, director, and instructor
(60-65 h/yr, first and second year graduate students from the Pharmacology and Toxicology, Biomedical Engineering, Nutrition, or Institute for Neuroscience Programs).

2013-2016 – PGS 478Q, Oral and Written Communication for Scientists
Topics: Scientific manuscripts (abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion), Oral presentations (style and content) for lay or scientific audiences
Role: Course co-director and instructor (with Dr. C.K. Erickson)
(4h/week PhD and MS students from different programs).

2016 – PHM 685F, Pharmacotherapeutics III.
Topics: Surgical & pain, psychiatry, neurology, oncology
Role: Course director for 14 faculty across 4 UT sites
(6h/week; PharmD students across 4 UT sites: Austin, El Paso, San Antonio, Rio Grande Valley)