MSU Active – 3DL4US

Mengqi ‘Veronica’ Zhang

Mengqi (Veronica) Zhang is an organic chemistry laboratory coordinator in Chemistry Department. She received her bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and Business Management from Nankai University, China. She then earned a PhD in Chemistry at the University of Georgia with specialization in chemical education. Her research interest focuses on curriculum development, instructional laboratory experiment design, green chemistry, and microwave chemistry

Cholani Weebadde

Cholani Weebadde is an Associate Professor in the Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences at Michigan State University (MSU). She received her Ph.D. degree with a dual major in the Genetics and the Plant Breeding and Genetics programs of Michigan State University in 2005. As the Plant Breeder for International Programs, Dr. Weebadde interacts closely with MSU breeders to help expand their programs by reaching out to the global plant breeding community through initiating collaborative research and capacity building programs. Dr. Weebadde is currently on a 100% teaching appointment and teaches plant breeding and biotechnology courses. She also teaches Biology to non-biology majors through the Center for Integrative Studies in General Sciences (CISGS). During summer, she continues mentoring graduate and undergraduate students in strawberry breeding research with a focus…

Kirtimaan Mohan

Kirtimaan Mohan is an Assistant Professor at the Lyman Briggs College and at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University. His research focuses on particle physics phenomenology. What is the nature of dark matter? How should we be looking for signs of new physics? What is the nature of the Higgs boson? How can precision calculations in quantum field theory help us answer these questions? These are some of the questions that he engages with. He is also interested in introducing computation in the physics curriculum and making physics courses more interdisciplinary in nature.

Shahnaz Masani

Shahnaz Masani is an assistant professor at Lyman Briggs College & the Department of Physiology. Her mission as educator is not only to teach, but also to inspire; to create life-long learners and informed, thoughtful citizens. She strives to design an inclusive, engaging & challenging classroom. She uses a flipped approach to teaching, with an aim to help students identify and link core concepts and develop their science process skills by constructing and testing hypothesis, analyzing data, and constructing scientific arguments in lab and lecture. Her research focuses on identifying novel pedagogical approaches in biology education, with an emphasis on interventions focused on increasing inclusivity & equity in the classroom.

Jinjie Liu

Jinjie Liu is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University who focuses on education and research. She teaches cell and molecular biology courses at Biological Sciences Program and established a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) curriculum for the Cell and Molecular Biology laboratory course, providing students with more inclusive research experiences and aiming to inspire them for a STEM career. She assesses students’ learning outcomes and scaffolds their learning process as part of her education research focus. Her science research interest is in lipid metabolic engineering and lipid-mediated signaling pathways.

Emily Josephs

I’m an evolutionary geneticist in the Plant Biology department at Michigan State University. My lab studies how evolution shapes trait variation within plant species. I’ve been working at MSU since 2019. Before coming here, I was a postdoc at the University of California, Davis, and a PhD student at the University of Toronto. I’m originally from southern California but I kind of like winter. In addition to being a professor, I’m mom to one kiddo (born in 2021), and a mediocre triathlete.

Corey Higley

Corey Higley is an Assistant Professor with the Biological Sciences Program at Michigan State University. She is an aquatic ecologist with a background in higher education scholarship and undergraduate learning pedagogy. Corey earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and her MS and PhD from Michigan State. Her dissertation research focused on assessing pedagogical approaches that influence student attitudes about the environment as an outcome of learning in environmental and natural resources courses. Corey teaches introductory organismal biology lab and lecture courses, as well as various field courses and study abroad!

Johanna Herman

Johanna Herman is an academic teaching specialist in the Department of chemistry at Michigan State University, overseeing and coordinating the General Chemistry Laboratory program. In her current position, she implements Cooperative Chemistry Laboratory curriculum—focusing on providing students opportunities to engage in common scientific practices while working as part of a team. Before joining MSU, Johanna earned a Doctorate Degree of Chemistry from the University of Delaware in 2020 studying the photodegradation of singlet oxygen sensors using spectroscopic methods. While enrolled as a graduate student, she severed as a teaching assistant and preceptor to various General Chemistry laboratory programs, including an integrated general biology–chemistry program. Before then, she attended Delaware Valley University, earning dual Bachelor’s Degrees in Chemistry and Secondary Education. Outside of work, Johanna has a passion for helping felines…

Rachel Henderson

Rachel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the CREATE for STEM Institute at MSU. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in physics from Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania and her Master’s and PhD in physics from West Virginia University. Rachel was a former post-doctoral researcher working with Danny in the Physics Education Research Lab (PERL) before joining the faculty at Michigan State. Her research focuses on developing and implementing inclusive and equitable assessment tools that can be used to improve learning for all students within the physics classroom. Specifically, she’s most interested in developing the next generation of physics assessments, particularly with an eye to equity and inclusion. Her work employs psychometric theory through large datasets and theoretically-grounded measurement models with an aim to ensure inclusive assessment practices within physics education.

Jonathan Hardy

My name is Jonathan Hardy and I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Michigan State University. I teach a 300-level course in Microbiology with about 480 students per semester. The course is team-taught with another professor and is a flipped course, with all lectures in the form of 10 to 20-minute videos. We use the online Desire to Learn (D2L) program to provide the lectures and for formative assessments. The course includes one 80-minute in-person section for the students each week, where they are broken into groups of four for active learning. The groups are carefully assigned using CATME to match the students and form productive groups. I greatly enjoy teaching this class, although it is a lot of work. The sections are…

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