San Francisco State University Biology and SEPAL PALS alumna, Marion Wood has been accepted to study medicine by a great distance at Far Eastern University in the Philippines where she currently lives with her family and relatives. Marion graduated from SFSU with a BS in Physiology in December of 2019, a perfect fit for someone who wants to study medicine. She was most notable for being one of the sixteen students who pioneered the current Peer Assistants for Learning Science (PALS), a course intended to reinforce biology students with desires to teach science in the future by working with current teachers and staff in biology such as BIO 230. Marion couldn’t have been in this position without her fellow physiology partner, Jennifer Breckler.
Marion’s journey at SFSU is over, but now she will pursue her new endeavors in medicine at her home country in the Philippines.
SEPAL Research Alumni and previously studied her Masters in Marine Biology at SFSU, our very own Analisa Brown has accepted to pursue her doctoral studies in Science Education at UC Davis. Not only Analisa has dedicated herself in the sciences, she has also dedicated herself to further improve educational experiences for black students in biology classes at SFSU and helping undergraduates through college advising for the METRO program.
Congratulations to our former Bio 230 student and M.D. candidate for UCSF, Carlos Damas. You probably recognize him during the first couple of lectures in Bio 230 in the intro slides, as well for his “Top Ten List of Why Folks Should Wear Their Bio 230 Bag Tag”. It has already been ten years since Carlos once sat in a theater full of his own fellow biology students getting ready to learn introductory biology. Now he is heading towards his dream goal in helping children with medical needs in our very own city of San Francisco for UCSF. If Carlos can accomplish his dreams, so can we.
One of our esteemed SEPAL Postdoc alums – Dr. Sara Brownell – was just awarded the prestigious 2020 LGBTQ+ Educator of the Year award from a national organization. Sara is an Associate Professor of Biology at Arizona State University and has a thriving biology education research laboratory there.
Her research focuses on strategies into making undergraduate classrooms more inclusive and secure for students of all backgrounds to further help them on their career in the sciences.
You can read more about her award and herself here.
We are proud to announce that SEPAL alumna, Dara Tolchin, has a new position in the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine program!
Tolchin received her Bachelor’s Degree in Biology with a Physiology concentration from San Francisco State University then went on to receive her Master’s Degree in Biology at Drexel University.
We are proud to announce that SEPAL alumna, Aileen Castro, has a new position at MyoKardia as a Research Associate!
Castro received her Bachelor’s Degree in Biology with a Physiology concentration from San Francisco State University. She has a prominent history of working in the hospital and health care industry, while also demonstrating substantial research experience.
We are proud to announce that SEPAL alumna, Kathryn Hussain, has recently been offered a tenure-track Biology Professor position at Madera Community College Center. She has accepted the position!
After receiving her MS Biology, Hussain has gone on to lecture BIOL230, Introductory Biology I; BIOL101, Human Biology; BIOL211, Microbiology and Public Health Laboratory at San Francisco State University.
ABSTRACT Researchers have identified patterns of intuitive thinking that are commonly used to understand and reason about the biological world. These cognitive construals (anthropic, teleological, and essentialist thinking), while useful in everyday life, have also been associated with misconceptions about biological science. Although construal-based thinking is pervasive among students, we know little about the prevalence of construal-consistent language in the university science classroom. In the current research, we characterized the degree to which construal-consistent language is present in biology students’ learning environments. To do so, we coded transcripts of instructor’s speech in 90 undergraduate biology classes for the presence of construal-consistent language. Classes were drawn from two universities with very different student demographic profiles and represented 18 different courses aimed at nonmajors and lower- and upper-division biology majors. Results revealed construal-consistent language in all 90 sampled classes. Anthropic language was more frequent than teleological or essentialist language, and frequency of construal-consistent language was surprisingly consistent across instructor and course level. Moreover, results were surprisingly consistent across the two universities. These findings suggest that construal-consistent language is pervasive in the undergraduate classroom and highlight the need to understand how such language may facilitate and/or interfere with students learning biological science.
Betz, Nicole, et al. “Cognitive Construal-Consistent Instructor Language in the Undergraduate Biology Classroom.” CBE—Life
Sciences Education 18.4 (2019): ar63.
Kimberly D. Tanner, along with thirty-seven faculty, staff and students featured, identifies the importance of teaching methods in classrooms and how this “Instructor Talk” greatly impacts the students’ capacity to retain knowledge lectured.
Tanner challenges the notion of only providing information for students that strictly follow the material of the lecture, insisting that it is also important to leave room for encouraging the student in order to better promote intellectual growth.
Click here to read more about it on the San Francisco State University website and here to read the published article!
Sahar Miry, an SFSU Biology alumna (BS Physiology) and Bio699 HHMI FEST participant focusing on diversity and inclusion, has recently secured a new professional position as a Clinical Research Coordinator at UCSF!
As a Clinical Research Coordinator Sahar’s role consists of coordinating single/multiple clinical research studies, managing and reporting on study results to investigators, managing databases and comprehensive datasets, overseeing data integrity, and participating in reviews of study protocols.
She decided to pursue this position because she plans to pursue a Doctorate of Pharmacy degree. With this job, she would be working alongside the FDA and pharmacists as well, which would be a great way to really experience the field and all that it entails. It also is preparing her to be an even better PharmD applicant!
