Four Fischell Department of Bioengineering (BioE) graduate students–Kimberly Ferlin, Sai Ganesan, Rachel Manthe and John Lin–have received Distinguished Teaching Assistant Awards from the University of Maryland’s Center for Teaching Excellence. The awards, presented each May at a formal reception at the Adele H. Stamp Student Union, recognize the contributions and achievements of outstanding graduate instructors.
Kimberly Ferlin, advised by Professor John Fisher (BioE), has served as the TA for Fisher’s section of BIOE 340: Modeling Physiological Systems and Lab for the past two years. She says that although she hasn’t decided yet whether to pursue a career in academia, the experience has given her “a feel for a future in teaching.”
“It was really rewarding to see the students progress throughout the semester,” she says. “Programming can be a hard thing to learn, but the students [did] a great job understanding how to write interesting physiological models and presenting their work in an application-based final project.” Ferlin adds that it was pleasant to discover that there is always something for her to learn as well: “Many of the students helped teach me new things at the same time I was teaching them.” Outside of her duties as a TA, Ferlin mentors undergraduate researchers in Fisher’s lab.
This article was taken from http://www.bioe.umd.edu/news/news_story.php?id=7411
