TEACHING
I have four years of experience teaching earth surface processes courses to a diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students. I have taught in various classroom settings, including small and large lecture halls, labs, and field trips. With a deep understanding that students have unique learning styles, I strive to create a welcoming environment that accommodates and celebrates their differences. My courses are designed to be engaging and interactive, featuring hands-on activities such as active learning, remote sensing, GIS, fieldwork, sampling, lab work, and data analyses.
My teaching experiences have helped me develop a strong foundation for an academic career that is focused on designing intentional, inclusive, and equitable learning environments. As every classroom is made up of students with varying backgrounds and skill levels, I employ multiple teaching strategies to convey information effectively. In particular, I place a significant emphasis on inclusive teaching strategies to overcome systematic barriers that prevent some students, especially those from marginalized communities, from succeeding. I am currently teaching at the Department of Earth and Climate Sciences, Bates College, and advising senior theses. While a postdoc at the University of Zurich, I acquired lab management experience and mentored MA and Ph.D. students in their field trips, lab analyses, data interpretation, and writing publications.
Undergraduate and graduate courses
Department of Earth and Climate Sciences, Bates College, United States
Professor
- EACS 307 – Soils and Landscape Evolution (Fall 2021 and Winter 2023)
I created the EACS 307 course from scratch. Students learn how to integrate concepts and analytical tools from geology, pedology, geomorphology, and geochemistry to evaluate the co-evolution of soils and landscapes across times scales. Topics covered include soil formation, soil geomorphology, soil properties that affect erosion processes, stable and unstable isotopes as soil erosion tracers, and discussions about anthropogenic soil erosion and environmental injustice. Particularly, how accelerated soil erosion rates disproportionately impact low-income and colored communities in the U.S. and worldwide. Furthermore, students are developing a hands-on project using 239+240Pu and stable carbon isotopes to evaluate soil erosion/sedimentation processes at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, White Mountains National Forest in New Hampshire.
- EACS 103 – Earth Surface Environments and Environmental Change (Winter 2022 and Winter 2023)
This course focuses on how the Earth works by looking at surficial environments and processes, climate change and its causes through time. As this course is a General Education course and has the SR (Scientific Reasoning) and QR (Quantitative and Formal reasoning) designations, in the classroom and laboratory students develop skills in description and analysis of Earth´s materials (minerals, rocks, sediments, and soils), spatial and temporal analysis of geological data, and environments, and analysis of past and present climate data. The overarching goal is to provide students with a long-term (geological, pre-historical, historical) context for understanding changes in Earth surface environments that we witness today and will encounter in the future.
- EACS 210 – Sedimentary Processes and Environments (Fall 2022)
In this course, students learn about modern sedimentary processes, sediment deposits, and related environments with the goal of interpreting current earth surface processes and ancient sediments in the rock record. Furthermore, students learn how to integrate concepts and analytical tools from sedimentology, pedology, and geomorphology to predict sediment distribution on the landscape and understand how sediments control soil formation, vegetation cover, soil carbon, and land use. Topics include physical and chemical weathering, soil formation, sediment properties, sediment transport and deposition in different environments, stratigraphic principles, geological time scale, sedimentary structures, and facies. Indoor labs enable to identify and describe sediments and sedimentary rocks and carry on grain size analyses. The local and regional field trips enable students to interpret modern processes and environments and ancient depositional systems.
- EACS S15 Glacial and Postglacial Landscapes of Southeast Alaska (Off-campus course, short-term, May 2022)
This course provides field-based learning experiences in a variety of southeast Alaska ecosystems. The Tongass National Forest is home to an extraordinary landscape diversity that offers an excellent natural laboratory to observe the interactions among geology, climate change, and soil development. This course includes visiting glaciated, riverine, lacustrine, and coastal systems where students observe how climate change and past and modern glaciers shape the earth surface.
- EACS S13 Soil Geography of New England (On campus course, short-term, May 2023)
This course provides students with the fundamentals of soil geography and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to understand soil distribution across the landscape. The New England region is home to an extraordinary landscape diversity that offers an excellent natural laboratory to examine the interactions among geology, geomorphology, and soil development. This course includes visits to the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, coastal areas, and a farm field in Maine. Topics include soil morphology and soil genesis, soils of New England, land use, and introduction to GIS. Students learn field techniques and GIS tools, and enhance communication skills that are useful in many careers.
Department of Geography, Minas Gerais State University, Brazil
Lecturer - 2018
- Surface Processes and Geomorphology
- Physical Geology
- Environmental Analyses
Soil Science and Environmental Science Department, Sao Paulo State University, Brazil
Invited Lecturer - 2018
- Pu isotopes for soil erosion assessment in natural and agricultural environments - First Brazilian Land Use Policy meeting
Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Postdoc and Teaching Assistant - 2017 and 2018
- Fundamentals of soil-plant-environment (2017)
- Laboratory course in Geochronology (2017, 2018)
Teaching Development
Each Day is a New Labor: What can black campus life teach us about pedagogy? August 2022
In this workshop, Dr. Tichavakunda discussed the complexity of race in historically white institutions of higher education in the US and how we can create a more inclusive space of learning. It included different examples of micro-affirmations to foster inclusion, listening and supporting students, and reflections on our pedagogical practices in the classroom, field trips, and office hours.
NAGT Workshop for Early Career Geoscience Faculty, June 2022
During early summer, I had a wonderful time in this intense 1-week workshop with early career colleagues and facilitators at the University of Maryland. It included sessions on topics about effective teaching strategies, course design, establishing a research program, working with undergraduate and graduate students, balancing personal and professional life, and time management. I highly recommend this workshop for all new geoscience faculty!
Participants of the Early Career Geoscience Faculty Workshop. Photo credit: Carol Ormand
Toward Abolitionist Pedagogy: Liberating Our Syllabi from Carceral Logics Confirmation, January 2022
Dr. Hailey Otis discussed how syllabi and pedagogical practices can be related to colonialism, slavery, and the modern prison system. We shared our teaching approach, ideas, and perspectives to liberate our syllabi from punitive approaches. Many thanks, Hailey!
