Courses Taught
THE LIVING WORLD (BIOL 1001): A non-majors’ course covering basic scientific and biological principles with an emphasis on the structure and processes of organisms. The course also includes a survey of the major types of living organisms.
PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY II (BIOL 1022): A majors’ course dealing with natural selection, population genetics, speciation, adaptation, phylogeny, co-evolution, extinction, ecological interactions, human evolution, and its ecological impact.
PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY II LABORATORY (BIOL 1023): A laboratory designed to accompany Biology 1022.
ECONOMIC BOTANY (BIOL 2050): The history and applied uses of plants as food, fibers, lumber, drugs, and related commodities.
ECOLOGICAL METHODS (BIOL 4004): I have revised this course, incorporating recent advancements in the subject, including a general understanding of the computational/modeling aspects in ecology.
PLANT COMMUNITY ECOLOGY (BIOL 4044): This course essentially deals with the study of plant populations and communities and their habitat with emphasis on the communities of the south-central US. I will be creating a special section in the syllabus that talks about the importance of wetland plant communities and their role in maintaining the high level of biodiversity seen in the southwestern US.
ECOSYSTEM AND COMMUNITIES (BIOL 4113): This is a university capstone course. I have developed this course and am teaching it once every two years. The major emphasis of this course is to tie the concepts of human-mediated ecosystem changes globally.
RESEARCH METHODS (BIOL 5005): Principles underlying biological research. Emphasis on the scientific method, statistical analysis, and their application in biological investigation. Prerequisite: Credit or registration in 5006.
GRADUATE SEMINAR (BIOL 5007): I redesigned this course as a two-part process. During the first part, students make a speech presentation on a topic of their choice and are peer-evaluated. In the second part, they are required to talk on a topic relevant to general biology. Students were also asked to critique two scientific papers.
PLANT SYSTEMATICS (BIOL 5034): I developed and taught this course in the Fall of 2008. The main components of taxonomy: description, identification, nomenclature, and classification were discussed, including an in-depth evaluation of 10 plant orders.