Episode CLXIV: Professor Norris

Fall 2018 was my first semester as a full-grown professor. I finally started performing my big teaching responsibility. The course was BIOL 3304: Genetics.

The course consisted of two separate classes, each class containing ~75 students. One meeting was MWF at 11 am, and the other immediately thereafter, MWF at noon. In other words, I got to give a lecture for one hour, then turn around and give the same lecture again the next hour, 3X a week! Here's a photo I snapped during the final exam, for a sense of scale.

Here I am posing with two of the most useful tools for the course: our genetics textbook, and a hoodie. The hoodie displays two strands of DNA (of the famous double helix). The zipper represents the hydrogen bonds by which individual DNA bases from one strand interact with their counterparts on the other strand. The students loved it!

 

 

Meanwhile, The Norris Lab continues to grow! Two Ph.D. students, one technician, six undergraduates, one Professor (me).

 

[Norris Lab posing with C. elegans worm. Not to scale.]