Faculty Spotlight: Priyadarshini Pathak
Priyadarshini Pathak, PhD formally joined the Department of Chemistry as an instructor in August 2024. She earned her PhD, with specialization in Biological Chemistry, from Stony Brook University in 2012. At Stony Brook she studied lipid ultra nanodomains in model membranes and in cells under the guidance of Dr. Erwin London. She has taught as a full-time instructor for more than 10 years at both the University and Community College level. Dr. Pathak completed a summer institute for educators in Baton Rouge where she learned pedagogical practices that increase learner engagement in large college classes. She also obtained the Applying the Quality Matters Rubric Certification at UL Lafayette. Participation in additional teaching and learning workshops on important topics such as student mental health, projecting your voice, why students fail in scientific disciplines, creating an inclusive classroom, and flipping the classroom have helped develop her teaching style. If you peek inside her freshman chemistry lecture hall, you will see students writing on the board and asking questions freely. To create this interactive atmosphere, Dr. Pathak constantly reflects on and redesigns her lectures and assessments.
Asked to expand on her approach she stated that "I mimic chameleons as I constantly change my teaching style to adapt to the day’s class. I have taught chemistry to a diverse student body from a wide range of educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. My students range from music and accounting majors, expecting to get their feet wet in chemistry, to nursing, engineering and pre-med students expecting a solid general, organic and biological chemistry education. My goal is to unravel “chemystery”, make chemistry more personal, embed it in their life by connecting it to other subjects. I have made little progress in that area. For example, I have had music majors compose poems on electrochemical cells, accounting majors calculate the molecules of carbon dioxide their cars produce, nursing students making decisions about a healthy lifestyle after learning chemical equations of carbohydrate digestion."
Contact Dr. Pathak or learn more through these links:
Priyadarshini.Pathak@louisiana.edu
The Department of Chemistry faculty page
Priyadarshini Pathak's Chemistry page