My Teaching Journey
Check out some of the courses I am teaching!
Philosophy
My teaching philosophy as well as my professional activity is built upon the following interrelated principles: vision, collaboration, active learning, critical thinking, feedback, and use of technology. Learning by doing active learning is especially relevant in bioinformatics, where the computational power of electronic media is applied to the intensely visual and dynamic life sciences. I firmly believe that, regardless of their chosen careers, students will achieve excellence and relevance by cultivating critical thinking skills. All the major changes in the course work that I have made reflect these values and provide students with more hands-on-exercises and challenge them with real life problems. Through such problem-based learning experience I hope to prepare them for the workplace. The Food Computer that I successfully built this year is particularly a good vehicle to engage students in bioinformatics research; for not only graduate students at UNO but also local students in high schools.
Courses
BIOI1000 (Introduction to Bioinformatics)
This course provides an introduction to the field and examines some of the problems of interest to bioinformaticians and how these relate to biology, computer science, mathematics and engineering. [Offered Fall and Spring ].
BIOI3000 (Applied Bioinformatics)
This course provides practical skills needed for the analysis of biological data. Introduction to various types of biological data and databases, which store them. The primary focus of this course will be in using web-based tools to access and analyze biological data. [Offered in Fall only].
BIOI4960 (Seminar in Bioinformatics)
A study of current research in bioinformatics. Topics covered in the course will vary from semester to semester. [Offered Fall and Spring, senior level status in the bioinformatics program].
BIOI4970/80 (Senior Project in Bioinformatics)
This is a two-part series that allows students to work on a guided research project on a specific topic in bioinformatics. The first part of the course require student to write a detailed proposal based on the topic chosen for study. The second part focuses on implementation of the proposed study. Presentation will be made in a form of a written scientific research paper and an oral defense. [Offered Fall and Spring].
BIOI4890/8896 (Computerized Genetic Sequence Analysis)
This course introduces students to computational tools and software that aid in modern molecular biology experiments. This course emphasizes hand-on experience with command-line program and scripts in the analysis of nucleotide and protein sequences. [Offered Spring].
BIOI8020 (Advanced Course in Bioinformatics)
The specific area covered will vary from one semester to another. Examples of areas include, but are not limited to, next-generation sequencing, biological networks, comparative genomics, mass spectroscopy, proteomics, metabolomics and biomedical informatics. [Offered Spring, inquire in advance].
