Before coming to ACU, I viewed the research that I did and the papers and presentations that were produced as a result of it as my contributions to science. Contributing to the knowledge of the natural world and being part of the community of scientists that did this was my goal. While this is still a goal, it is only about half of my greater goal in the area of scholarship. My goal now is that my scientific contributions include undergraduates in their production.
When an undergraduate research student begins working with me in my lab, I initially teach the student how to carry out simple protocols. After that, I gradually let the student have more control over the project until the student “owns” the project and can give solid, coherent public presentations over their work.
In this scholarship section, I have included the scholarly activities that I have carried out with ACU undergraduates, work that I have done both on my own and with other ACU professors, and manuscripts for papers and patents that I finished from my post-doctoral research while working at ACU in the Biology Department.