I had to learn to teach but ended up teaching to learn. When I first came to Penn I had no real teaching experience. I did, however, share the values of my native India, which has an ancient tradition deeply rooted in the master-disciple — or the guru-shishya relationship. The profession of teaching enjoys tremendous respect and dignity in my culture. The birthday of one of our first Presidents, the distinguished philosopher and educator Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, is celebrated as Teacher’s Day in schools all over the country. I have been fortunate enough to be blessed with wonderful teachers throughout my academic career. These teachers have taught me not only what I needed to learn, but also mentored me through rough patches and made learning fun for me.

Drawing upon personal impressions of my favorite teachers, it is clear to me that the empathy and genuine affection they showered on me was a critical ingredient of the successful teaching process. In the course of teaching the laboratory component of Biology courses, I had the opportunity to provide this support to my students. Teaching turned out to be a very rich and rewarding experience. It challenged me not only in practical terms such as class planning and grading, but also in subtle other ways that I could never have imagined. I especially enjoyed coaxing students into open discussion and dialogue; a particularly rewarding example of this was when a student asked a question that seemed ostensibly out-of-the-box, enough so to make the whole class sit back and ponder before debating it. Of course I consider it important that each student understand basic concepts; but it is even more important to encourage the ability to take those concepts and reinterpret them in original ways. The small class setting in our courses allowed me to give individual attention, which went a long way in bringing out the shy ones. Once they were encouraged in the right fashion, they proved to be as hard-working and accomplished as their peers.

I found that the most effective way to make course materials accessible—and in the process make teaching and learning more engaging—was to contextualize. I would pepper my classes with real life examples of how biology works as well as anecdotes about the significance of the experiments they performed. For example, when the nursing students were studying bacterial morphology, I would give examples of pathogens like the anthrax-causing bacterium or the cholera-causing bacterium that typified the shapes they were studying. In another experiment where students had to artificially introduce recombinant DNA into bacteria and select for it using drug resistance markers, I gave them an example of this process happening in nature when we see the appearance of drug resistant strains of pathogens. Including funny but relevant war stories from my own research experience also proved to be a great success.

If students had difficulty understanding, I spent some extra time with them to help them grasp the intricacies of the material. Sometimes, all it took was a little more time; mere patience proved to be a very effective virtue. The students also respected honesty as an approach. If they had a question that I didn’t have an answer to, it was better to admit it and get back to them with the correct answers in the next session. There were instances when I found that I learned from my students, or at the very least refreshed my basics.

My objective throughout my teaching experience has been to inculcate in my students the scientific temper and an abiding belief in discipline when it comes to the protocols of performing a lab experiment. I tried to accomplish this by steering them away from the idea of getting “instant data,” to instead focus on the “methodology of science.” The idea is that if the methods are correct, the data will ultimately follow.

The Biology department has always placed a very high emphasis on teaching and undergraduate training in research. Not only does this help me as a student to reanalyze my research goals, but it also provides me a new perspective as a teacher. The whole process of teaching has been a learning process for me too, and interacting with bright young minds has been a great source of inspiration. My teaching experiences have generated mutually respectful relationships. I am delighted and feel a sense of proprietary pride when past students stop me on the street for a chat and apprise me of their progress. Teaching has been a truly valuable experience for me as a student, teacher, and person.

I was always the TA who gave the toughest quizzes, graded the hardest, and preferred real graph paper instead of the goodies that Microsoft offers. I am deeply gratified that my students have not resented but appreciated these efforts, as evidenced by my nomination for this award. I’m honored by their approval and by my consideration for this award. I want to sincerely thank all my students for making my teaching experience so valuable and rewarding.