Biography
My undergraduate degree is a BS in Chemistry from BYU and I earned a MS and PhD in organic chemistry from the University of California, San Diego. I began full-time as professional teaching faculty at BYU in 2004 after 5 years teaching adjunct for the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Research Interests
My current research interest is in science literacy and chemical education. One of my international projects is in Uganda, Africa. We design curriculum with hands-on classroom and lab experiments to train secondary school teachers and pre-service teachers in inquiry and problem-based pedagogy. In 2023 my team started a new project for university faculty in Uganda that is based on the BYU STEM Faculty Institute (STEM FI). STEM FI is an NSF-funded professional development workshop for science faculty to learn how to incorporate active-learning into classroom lectures. The research is in collaboration with professors at Makerere University, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, and the Ugandan National Curriculum Development Center. My research team also uses randomized control trials (RCT) to study the effectiveness of different student-centered strategies.Teaching Interests
BYU students are amazing and I have the privilege of teaching 500-1000 each year in general chemistry, organic chemistry, and biochemistry. I continue to improve my teaching through seminars and workshops. In Winter semester 2020 I took a graduate course to learn how to successfully flip a course which I implemented Spring 2020 and Fall 2020. This had some advantages for students during COVID since the lecture part of the course was delivered online with interactive asynchronous activities. I have continued to use the flipped classroom approach in my OChem 2 courses and Winter 2026 I am piloting teaching organic chemistry TTh for 75 min each class, instead of the traditional MWF for 50 min, in order to have incorporate more active learning strategies in class.Honors and Awards
- Professional Faculty Teaching Award, Brigham Young University (2015 - 2015)
- College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Teaching Award for 3-10 years experience, CPMS (2011 - 2014)
Administrative Assignments
- College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences: Associate Dean (2017 - 2025)
Memberships
- American Chemical Society (1999 - Present)