About

Kristin McCullyE-mail: kmccully@ucla.edu
Curriculum Vitae

  • Teaching Fellow, Life Sciences, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
  • Ph.D., Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with Emphasis in Education, University of California, Santa Cruz (2006-2013)
  • B.S., Marine Biology with Specialization in Computing, UCLA (2006-2006)

 

Brief Biography:

Kristin McCully currently works as Teaching Fellow in Life Sciences at UC Los Angeles. She has served in various capacities for mathematics, computer programming, and statistics courses for life science students and introductory biology courses. Her duties include mentoring and managing graduate TAs and undergraduate learning assistants; developing homework assignments, clicker questions, and exams; coordinating grading and other logistics; facilitating interactive lectures (some in flipped classroom format); and leading labs/discussion sections. She is also actively involved with UCLA’s Center for Educational Innovation and Learning in the Sciences (CEILS). Learn more about her teaching and education research.

Kristin previously worked as Coordinator of UCSC’s Broader Impacts Office. While helping to found this office, she advised researchers on education and outreach activities and how to describe them in grant proposals.

Kristin McCully earned her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 2013 at UC Santa Cruz in the lab of Dr. Donald Potts.  She used tools ranging from Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and gel electrophoresis to driving boats and scuba diving to study the population dynamics of the depleted black-lipped pearl oysters and other bivalves on the coral reefs of Midway Atoll in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (Northwestern Hawaiian Islands). Learn more about her biology research.

In the last few years of her Ph.D., she became very interested in science education and completed a Designated Emphasis (minor) in Education, a dissertation chapter on integrating math into biology education, and a National Science Foundation GK-12 fellowship as a SCWIBLES resident scientist at Watsonville High School. She also served as instructor for Marine Ecology (summer 2014) and Ecology of Reefs, Mangroves, and Seagrasses (winter 2010) at UCSC and as teaching assistant for several courses. In 2010-2014, she served as vice president of UCSC’s Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) organization.

Kristin earned her bachelor’s degree at UCLA in 2006, majoring in Marine Biology and minoring in Computer Science. While at UCLA, she conducted independent research on a non-native Japanese oyster (Crassostrea gigas) in Los Angeles harbor and worked as a Marine Habitat Specialist for NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. She also conducted field research in coral reef ecology while studying abroad at James Cook University (Queensland, Australia) and participating in UCLA’s Marine Biology Quarter at Mo’orea, French Polynesia.

For more details on Kristin’s experience and skills, see her curriculum vitae.