I am a recipient of an Engaged Cornell grant entitled Learning It, Doing It, Living It, along with Jesus Madrid and Alexander Ophir. We are creating a curriculum aimed at late elementary and early middle-schoolers to teach how early life experience affects behavior later in life. This grant will rely on undergraduate ambassadors to teach participants using activities modified from RoachLab.org. Through the use of cockroaches, we aim to expose young scientists to the joy of working with animals to solve behavioral questions and empower undergraduate students with skills to talk and teach science to the general public.

I have been a part of the Graduate Student School Outreach Program (GRASSHOPR) at Cornell for two years (Spring 2017 and Spring 2020). GRASSHOPR pairs graduate students with local K – 12 teachers to create age-appropriate lessons for their students. I have worked with Lisa Hiura, Santiago Forero, and Lindsay Sailer to make and teach lessons to third-graders about neuroscience and the brain. We worked with teachers to ensure we hit upon material that would synchronize with state-level learning goals. We had a blast teaching our lessons directly to the students over three days!