Education

Teaching

I am in the process of developing a course on "Evolutionary Perspectives on Mental Health," which I taught as a special topics course in spring 2025 and hope to teach as a larger course in fall 2026. This class asks WHY, from a physiological and evolutionary perspective, we often feel stressed, depressed, awe, or joy, and how these emotions can wreak havoc on our mental health in modern environments. We explore how an ecological and evolutionary understanding of mental health can help us lead happier lives, experimenting with interventions (and assessments of those interventions) throughout the semester.

I spent 12 years teaching a writing-intensive course in Animal Behavior (EEB 3412W), focusing on engaging students in the scientific process, in addition to communicating foundational concepts in behavior. Students had the opportunity to conduct real research in animal behavior and present their findings at the end of the semester in a research paper and class "mini-conference." In the later years of the course, I taught it through a bio-inspired lens, after finding that such an approach increased student engagement during the pandemic.

I have also worked to develop a non-majors class in bio-inspired design, working with collaborators in the College of Design. This class explores what we can learn from the diverse solutions that organisms have evolved to address a wide range of problems, covering a range of evolutionary principles useful for biomimetic approaches. This class was initially taught as a freshman and honors seminar before expanding into a grand challenges class taught in collaboration with engineers and architects (GCC 3015/50515). Materials for this course have served as inspiration for a series of modules on principles of biology for biomimetics.

I periodically teach Animal Diversity (BIOL3012), in addition to teaching a module at CBS "Nature of Life at Itasca" each summer.

At the graduate level, I teach one semester of the Graduate Foundations course — Fundamentals of Animal Behavior and Professional Development. In the former, we discuss a mixture of classic and current literature in behavior. In the latter, we go through a series of activities and readings on topics, such as career paths in science, scientific writing and presentation skills, mentoring students and finding mentors for yourself, and searching and applying for jobs.
 

Sharing our research and love of biology


I am very interested in sharing the importance of science and biological diversity to a general audience. To this end, I enjoy giving public talks on topics such as insect learning and behavior, the impact of pollution on pollinators, gardening for butterflies, and a range of other topics related to our research. Some of these talks are available online, including:

We also like to engage people in hands-on activities that display insect or avian diversity, plant-insect interactions, and methods of biological research. For example, the lab participates annually in outreach at the butterfly house at the Minnesota State Fair and insect fairs on campus. From 2011-2017, I organized an outreach fair each year at the Animal Behavior Society. As an example of the types of activities developed for these events, please see Caitlin Kight's blog entry on the 2011 event in Bloomington, IN, or Felicity Muth's blog entry on the 2013 event in Boulder, CO. We try to make appearances at local events whenever possible, for instance, Minneapolis' "Pollinator Party."

Are you interested in having us give a presentation for your organization? Please email [email protected].

 

A visitor lands on Lauren after a butterfly release at Wonderlab's "Adventures in Animal Behavior"

A visitor lands on Lauren after a butterfly release at Wonderlab's "Adventures in Animal Behavior."
(Photo by Naama Levy, Indiana Daily Student)