teaching

Tutorials

During my Post-Doc at the University of Oxford, I have taught Human Evolutionary Genetics in the form of Oxbridge tutorials. Tutorials are an exceptionally effective teaching strategy, in which a small group of students are invited to discuss a particular topic with the teacher, after they have explored it carrying their own research (or following a reading list provided by the instructor) and wrote their own ideas on a short essay. There are no grades on the essay nor on the discussion. Most of the time tutorials end with more questions than answer, increasing the eager of knowledge of the students…and the one of teachers. By far, one of the best teaching experiences I have ever had.

Project supervision

I have supervised and co-supervised a certain number of posgraduate students in master Thesis and PhD projects. Some of them were focused on the characterisation of the genetic variability in Southern Africa, in the attempt to shed light at tremendous demographic phenomena, such as the Bantu expansion, or exploring the intimate connection between genetic and cultural feature, such as subsistence, language or clan affiliation. All these experiences ended up learning more than teaching, appreciating the enormous diversity of attitudes, skills and passions of students. The role of a teacher is, in my humble view of unexperienced instructor, to cultivate this variety, and transmit the notion that there can be several ways to be a good scientist.