Educational Outreach. In line with the overall mission of the USC, my laboratory strives to accomplish three main educational outreach goals:
- Provide students with the highest-quality education necessary for success and responsible citizenship in a complex and changing world.
- Enhance education by promoting highly integrated research and scholarship
- Provide service and support to the community, state, nation, and the world.
Teaching. Teaching is a collaboration between teacher and student and my overall approach to teaching in the class and in the laboratory can best described as active adaptation where student strengths are bolstered and weaknesses are addressed, corrected and minimized. Overall, through a combination of classroom, laboratory, and in-the-field settings, all students should be able to understand and apply the scientific method.
Environmental Pollution and Health (ENHS221)
Ecology of Infectious Disease (ENHS793A)
Environmental Genomics (ENHS793B)
Applied Research in Environmental Health Sciences (ENHS765)
Graduate student and postdoctoral associate mentoring. The role of an educator transcends the traditional classroom and extends into the laboratory through the training of future scientists. My approach to training graduate students in the laboratory is to provide strong guidance while they initially learn complex techniques to ensure a deep understanding of each step. Once confident, they become independent and incorporate their own ideas into laboratory practice. To enhance knowledge, senior graduate students teach techniques to new and visiting students while I give input when necessary. My approach to training postdoctoral associates is different than that of training graduate students. As a postdoc is capable of doing laboratory science, attention is focused on preparation for a future professional career. To achieve this, while maintaining a strong research component, postdocs also mentor graduate students working on similar projects. Together, with my oversight, they formulate ideas and questions that drive the research project. I routinely meet independently with the postdoc and graduate student to assess the mentoring progress. This approach enhances both the education and experience of graduate students and postdocs.
Community Outreach. The Norman laboratory, through NSF funding, has instituted a lab and lecture-based ‘Young Genomic Scientists’ program to educate high school students and science teachers about state-of-the-art genomic-based tools for understanding microbial processes occurring in nature.