THRIVE Academic Learning

I am a passionate educator with over 35 years of teaching experience in higher education. My background is in biobehavioral health, which is a mix of biology, psychology, social determinants of health, and neuroscience. I am a retired Professor Emerita from Penn State University where I taught thousands of undergraduate students who have gone on to successful careers in medicine, health, public health, childhood education, and secondary education. I love teaching and am so excited to connect with other educators who are passionate about giving their students tools for a lifetime of success and healthy well being!

I alter my teaching styles to best suit my students and the learning environment. I use the Socratic method in my smaller classroom, laboratory and research settings and transition to experiential and lecture formats in my larger classroom settings. In my larger my classes, well over 200+ students, I use a Socratic method as much as possible to engage students in the course material and find ways to demonstrate the relevance of the material to their lives.

I have been honored to receive multiple teaching awards at Penn State University for my performance as an educator. What means more to me are the successes of my students who have gone on to successful careers in the medical, health, public health, and education field (both secondary and post-secondary education). I treasure my students and their successes mean far more than any plaque for my teaching.

I graduated from the Fairfax County Public School system in the mid 80s and earned my BS in Psychology and Human Development from Virginia Tech. I took a few years off to work at Walter Reed assisting with clinical HIV trials examining the biopsychosocial impacts of the disease on Army soldiers. I went on to earn my MS and Ph.D. in Medical Psychology from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Health Psychology at UCLA before joining the Biobehavioral Health faculty at Penn State in 1999. I retired as Professor Emerita earlier this year after decades of engaged research and teaching.