Teaching Statement

For the last five years, I have served as an assistant professor at the University of San Diego. I have received very favorable responses for my teaching from the students. Students consistently attend my office hours and problem sessions to supplement the material of the class. I respect every question I get so students are never intimidated from asking me anything. My methods balance the need of giving students as much help as possible while encouraging their independence. Einstein's principle of "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler," is the statement which guides and shapes my philosophy.

My passion for teaching started when I was a graduate student at UCSD, I was the teaching assistant for several engineering classes including: Fluid Dynamics, Thermodynamics, Control Systems, Nuclear Energy, Material Science, Computer Aided Design, and Physics. Among my duties were lecturing to audiences of more than 100, tutoring students individually, creating and grading tests and homework, and preparing lessons. With each subsequent class, I observed the methods which were most effective in facilitating understanding of the subject, and I developed a comprehensive philosophy for how to best conduct a class. Among the techniques which I now employ are:

1) I use all the tools of modern and traditional technology to illustrate concepts and ideas. In the past, the only way to help students visualize physical phenomena such as the streamlines of a fluid was to show films and photographs. With the science and engineering software available in the present day such as Mathematica and Matlab, I can have students take the equations they learn in class to create an entire flow field. Students can change parameters to see how this alters the results providing them with a profound level of interaction with the physics. Because programming was such a big part of my Ph.D. thesis, I can also teach classes where students create their own custom software. Of course, if appropriate facilities exist, having students observe actual experiments which confirm the principals they are learning is valuable.

2) The years I spent in industry allows me to connect the lessons of the classroom to the world outside of it. Students strongly desire an appreciation of the relevance of what they are learning to their future work as engineers, and this is achieved by giving examples of where the lessons of the classroom fit into the process of prototyping, creating, testing, and manufacturing.

3) To give students more depth than what is possible with homework and tests, I usually have them do a design type open-ended project which lasts for the duration of the class. This project is another way in which they will see their engineering knowledge applied to a specific problem. In addition to math and physics, that must also be able to clearly explain their results with figures and graphs. This need to articulate scientific work greatly enhances their understanding as well as gives them another opportunity to practice the often neglected skill of report writing.

With teaching, I have the good fortune of both enjoying it as well as having an aptitude for it.