March 26, 2009 See photos from awards ceremony
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| Andrea Lucky is the recipient of a 2009 Outstanding Graduate Student Award for excellence in teaching in the lab, field and classroom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
DAVIS—For excellence in teaching in the lab, field and classroom, entomology doctoral candidate Andrea Lucky has won a 2009 UC Davis Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award, sponsored by the Graduate Council, Office of Graduate Studies and the Teaching Resources Center.
Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef will present the award at a ceremony set for 3 p.m., Monday, April 6 in the Walter A. Buehler Alumni and Visitors' Center. Lucky is one of only 12 to receive the coveted award this year. Her major professor, Phil Ward, will introduce her.
Ward, who nominated her for the award, praised her “stellar teaching assistance” and her “exceptional commitment to science teaching and outreach in general.”
Lucky, who joined the Ward lab four years ago, served as his teaching assistant in a five-week field taxonomy and ecology course last summer at the Sagehen Creek Field Station, northern Sierra Nevada. The course, Entomology 109 and also known as "Bug Boot Camp," introduces students to the diversity of California insects in natural habitats.
Lucky interacted with the students 12 to 14 hours a day, from dawn at the breakfast table to late at night in the lab, six days a week, Ward said. “Entomology 109 is a demanding course for both students and teachers, yet Andrea was unfailingly upbeat, engaging and responsive to students. She was willing to assist in the lab, the field and even the kitchen when the situation demanded.”
“Andrea’s enthusiasm for the subject and her knowledge of the subject matter are a rare combination,” Ward said. “She is dedicated to encouraging student participation and attentive to individual student learning styles, and as a result she is very effective in establishing a creative, hands-on, interactive learning environment. She is notable for her ability to engage students while encouraging a high level of intellectual rigor.”
Lucky uses novel, creative techniques to help students learn. She designed a freshman seminar course on “Insects and Media” and taught it for four years. The seminar uses science, and especially insects, as portrayed by modern media as the basis for discussions about the facts behind the fiction and how audiences distinguish information vs. entertainment.
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| Students in the five-week "Bug Boot Camp" search for insects. Professor Phil Ward is second from right. Click to enlarge. (Photo by Andrea Lucky) |
Lucky also introduced a modern media dimension to the summer course “by using documentary movies to complement the standard taxonomic teaching materials, familiarizing students with new electronic identification keys, and encouraging exploration of online resources,” Ward said. “This approach in a typical taxonomy course is certainly out-of-the-ordinary, but in fact is reflective of the changing field of systematics, which is indeed embracing the use of electronic databases and identification tools.”
Lucky served as the teaching assistant for several other courses: biodiversity, insect diversity, and phylogeny and macroevolution. She guest-lectured at a freshman seminar, “Bugs From the Far Side”; organized the 2008 undergraduate research poster competition; supervises undergraduate employees in insect research projects; and volunteers for science outreach programs at local elementary and middle schools. She also served on several committees with faculty to implement successful teaching/research programs in entomology.
Lucky, a native of Chicago, grew up in Cincinatti and is a 2000 graduate of Brown University, Providence, R.I., with a bachelor of arts degree in biology, with honors. She was admitted to the UC Davis graduate program in the fall of 2004. Her graduate research goals: revision of the taxonomy, phylogeny and biogeography of the ant genus Leptomyrmex; conducting an ant-based analysis of Australian and Pacific biogeography.
| '...the teachers who most positively influenced my development were those who were able to connect to me personally, and I hope to continue their legacy.'—Andrea Lucky |
“My career objectives,” she said, “are to broaden the scope of my insect diversity research, especially expanding into areas where ‘insects meet people’ – insect conservation, biodiversity applications, public education and college teaching.”
Lucky said she is particularly interested in teaching biology at the undergraduate level. “At this stage, students are not only choosing what subjects to study, but deciding whether or not to continue in an academic career. I want to inspire these young people with engaging teaching, by fueling the passion in the self-driven students and through assisting the ones searching for their career path.”
She studied insects and other arthropods of the Amazon Rain Forest as a two-year Fulbright Fellow to Ecuador.
Her philosophy of teaching? “In my experience, outstanding teaching requires combining passion with breadth and depth of knowledge in a field,” she said. “The information being taught is important, but it’s just a start. To set a person on a path of curiosity and discovery, active, project-based learning and hands-on research elements must be included. Students developing critical thinking and the capacity for synthesis of ideas must be challenged frequently and sensitively. Perhaps the most demanding task for a good teacher is to approach students as individuals, rather than to addressing a class as a whole. In my education, the teachers who most positively influenced my development were those who were able to connect to me personally, and I hope to continue their legacy.”
Twelve to Be Honored
Twelve graduate students will receive teaching awards at the April 6th ceremony.
They are: Shannon Cannon, Education; Maria Cetto, Spanish; Jennie Luna, Native American Studies; Cassandra Paul, Physics; Jennifer Plasse, Forensic Science; Baba Jallow, History; Vanessa Rapatz, English; Elisabeth Testa, Music; Tiffany Beth Gilmore, English; Andrea Lucky, Entomology; Kim Stackhouse, Animal Biology, and Shannon Still, Plant Biology.
More information is available from Melisss Baldwin of the Office of Graduate Studies.
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--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
