Teaching & Mentorship

I am passionate about research mentorship and have been actively involved in working with undergraduate students since I was a grad student. I have supervised several undergraduate research projects through the applied biology undergraduate thesis course (APBI 499) and directed studies course (APBI 497) at UBC. In 2021, I volunteered as a research mentor in the UBC Research Experience program and came runner-up for mentor of the year. If you are a senior undergraduate student interested in learning more about laboratory animal welfare and research, please feel free to reach out.

I have been a teaching assistant for several undergraduate courses in the UBC Applied Biology program. I have also had the opportunity to co-instruct the Research Methods in Applied Biology course (APBI 398) and I instructed APBI 317 (Welfare and Ethics of Using Animals in Science) in 2022 and 2023. When teaching, I encourage students to actively engage with course materials in ways that promote critical thinking, reflection on different perspectives, and real-world transferable skills (e.g., effective communication, problem solving).

Past student evaluations provide examples of positive impacts I have had on students through my approach to teaching: 

 “Anna was an incredible source of knowledge and information about not only research methods, but also aspects of potential graduate student life. She showed real care when helping students and always provided constructive feedback.” 

"Anna communicated course content in a really balanced way, allowing people to come to their own informed conclusions about issues of animal treatment and welfare. She also provided lots of opportunities to ask for support and was very approachable ."

“...Having Anna as a TA has definitely helped me improve as a writer."

"[What I liked most was] how it was a really comprehensive course and none of the assignments felt like they were trying to trick us or be unnecessarily complicated, but just really helped us reflect on the course material and apply our learning. Anna is very approachable and wants us to succeed, she also provides many different perspectives as well as her own insight into topics. "

“Not only was she very prepared for the upcoming classes and organized, but she also helped create a very supportive environment within the class that made it a great learning experience. I would gladly take another one of Anna's classes as she was always available to provide constructive feedback and helped support my learning” 

Below are some examples of memes created by my APBI 317 students (shared with permission) to demonstrate concepts of interest at the end of the course, inspired by this paper