User:Asaearnest

Asa Earnest is a PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis in the Evolution, Ecology and Population Biology program. He is working on doctoral research in the lab of Kerry Kornfeld, investigating questions related to aging and population dynamics using theoretical and experimental approaches in the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans. He had previously conducted research into the interactions of landscape ecology and population genetics in Fundulus topminnows during his Masters research at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville working in David Duvernell's lab. He has also been a research assistant on projects examining nutrient cycling in longleaf pine savannas and watershed species assessments during his undergraduate work at University of West Georgia. His primary research interests involve bridging gaps between multi-scale ecology and other biological disciplines - primarily genetics.

Asa is currently a teaching assistant for WUSTL's Fall 2014 Behavioural Ecology course, which utilizes Wikipedia as a tool to help students learn to engage the public in scientific discourse. He also will be assisting in teaching the spring 2014 Missouri's Natural Heritage course, which is a field-heavy traditional natural history course where students will each become experts in a chosen taxon and educate others about their chosen taxon. Previously, he worked four years as a high school science teacher in the Paulding County School District, teaching Biology, Environmental Science, Physical Science and Earth Systems. He hopes to learn some innovative pedagogical strategies that go beyond traditional lecture-lab methods by assisting with these courses.