Teaching
Teaching and mentoring in climate, Earth system science, energy, and environmental change.
I teach students to use scientific evidence, critical thinking, and quantitative tools to understand complex environmental problems. My goal is not simply to communicate scientific concepts, but to help students learn how to evaluate evidence, test competing explanations, work with real data, and communicate what they find.
I aim to make Earth and climate science tangible without sacrificing rigor. I connect physical and ecological processes to contemporary challenges in climate, energy, food, water, and environmental change, while creating opportunities for students to develop the confidence and independence to tackle unfamiliar problems. Wherever possible, I emphasize authentic datasets, quantitative analysis, scientific literature, and problems for which the answers are not known in advance.
Teaching experience
My teaching experience spans core areas of Earth system and environmental science, including climate, ecosystems, sustainable energy, food and water systems, geographic information systems, and natural climate solutions.
Natural Climate Solutions
Guest Lecturer, Dept. of Geography, UCLA (2024, 2025, 2026)
An exploration of the many natural pathways available to address the climate crisis beyond ending fossil fuel use. The course examines nature-based solutions that draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide through both reduced emissions and increased carbon uptake, via ecosystem protection, management, and restoration. Students explore the interplay of natural and human dimensions of the carbon cycle, with a central focus on how the global and regional carbon cycle is changing and what that means for climate mitigation strategy.
Sustainable Energy Systems
Teaching Assistant, Dept. of Earth System Science, UC Irvine (2020, 2021)
Addresses how modern energy services can be delivered sustainably, and the challenges and barriers standing in the way. The course covers major environmental issues tied to energy systems, including climate change, air pollution, and resource demands, alongside the technological and policy pathways toward a lower-carbon energy future.
Sustainable Food and Water Systems
Teaching Assistant, Dept. of Earth System Science, UC Irvine (2019)
Explores the biophysical underpinnings of food production, the history of agricultural development, and the environmental issues facing modern agricultural systems, including water management, climate change, and land use. The course connects food security challenges to the broader Earth system processes that sustain them.
Introduction to the Cryosphere: Climate Change and the Cryosphere
Teaching Assistant, Dept. of Earth System Science, UC Irvine (2020, 2021)
Introduces the fundamental science governing the cryosphere and its interactions with the broader climate system. The course also covers the significant economic, sociological, and political consequences of the ongoing, anthropogenically driven melting of the cryosphere, connecting physical science to real-world impacts.
Fundamentals of GIS for Environmental Science
Teaching Assistant, Dept. of Earth System Science, UC Irvine (2017)
An introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS), covering the fundamentals of cartography, creating and editing GIS data, linking spatial and tabular data, georeferencing, map projections, geospatial analysis, and spatial statistics. Students build and apply GIS models using examples drawn from hydrology, ecology, and geology.
Introduction to Earth System Science
Teaching Assistant, Dept. of Earth System Science, UC Irvine (2016)
Covers the origin and evolution of the Earth, its atmosphere, and its oceans, approached through the lens of biogeochemical cycles, energy use, and human impacts on the Earth system. Serves as a foundational course connecting Earth’s physical history to present-day environmental change.
In addition to the courses I’ve taught, I have received formal pedagogical training in Earth System Science and Ecology at UC Irvine, with an emphasis on evidence-based teaching and evaluation with the goal of improving instructional practice.
Courses I am prepared to teach and develop
My future teaching will connect the physical science of climate change with the technological, ecological, economic, and societal systems that shape both its impacts and potential solutions.
Introduction to Climate Change: Evaluating Drivers and Solutions
An interdisciplinary course connecting the physical climate system with impacts, adaptation, mitigation, and climate policy.
Energy Systems and Decarbonization
A quantitative examination of global energy systems, including energy infrastructure, fossil fuel-derived products, technological change, emissions, and pathways toward deep decarbonization.
Climate Attribution and Risk
A data-driven course on detecting and attributing climate change, extreme events, impacts, vulnerability, and emerging applications of attribution science.
Sustainable Land-Use, Carbon Removal and Climate Intervention
A comparative examination of how global food systems have shaped the environment and how natural and engineered climate interventions can address climate change, emphasizing biophysical constraints, durability, scalability, resource demands, and ecological trade-offs.
I am also prepared to teach courses in Earth system science, sustainable food and water systems, GIS and geospatial analysis, natural climate solutions, and introduction to environmental data science in Python.
Across these courses, I would have students work directly with climate and environmental datasets, conduct modeling and spatial analyses, critically evaluate the scientific literature, and communicate their reasoning to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Mentoring
I view mentoring as an essential part of scientific training. My goal is to help students and early-career researchers develop the technical skills, confidence, independence, and professional judgment needed to define their own paths.
My approach evolves with career stage. With undergraduates, I emphasize turning curiosity into tractable research questions and building the foundations for independent research. With graduate students and junior researchers, I focus on scientific independence, professional identity, communication, and career preparation.
I also place particular value on making the parts of academic and scientific careers that are often learned informally more visible, including identifying research opportunities, navigating collaborations, building professional networks, communicating science, and evaluating academic and non-academic career paths.
Selected research mentees
Cate O’Bryon
Undergraduate researcher, UCLA · 2024–2025
Alcen Chiu
Undergraduate researcher, UCLA · 2023–2024
Research on the climate and ecological constraints of tropical bioenergy; coauthor, PNAS Nexus.
Daniel Blanco
Ph.D. student, Rutgers University · 2022–2023
Lauren Liebermann
Undergraduate researcher, UC Irvine · 2021–2022
Research on the ownership and financial exposure of power plants stranded by climate mitigation; coauthor, Nature Sustainability.
In addition to research supervision, I have mentored undergraduate and graduate students through formal and informal mentoring programs at UC Irvine and UCLA. Ultimately, I want students and mentees to leave able to ask better questions, evaluate evidence, solve unfamiliar problems, and communicate why their work matters.