XINJUN ZHANG, PHD
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Teaching Philosophy
As a scientist and STEM educator, I am ​deeply committed to creating an inclusive educational environment, innovating pedagogical methods, and taking leadership roles to promote underrepresented groups in science. I value outreach to public audience equally with traditional classroom teaching.
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As course instructor and online module contributor (UCLA)

Workshop "Variant Calling with GATK" for QCB Collaboratory
  • Winter 2021, Spring 2021
  • Designed the teaching materials for lectures and and computational lab practices.
  • Focus on the specific issues of running GATK on the UCLA hoffman2 cluster, and post-variant discovery quality controls.
  • Enrollment: ~25 per quarter

​Basics of Genomes (BIG Bio) - Population Genetics Online Module
  • Designed the learning material package for the Population Genetics (I and II) modules for Big-Bio @ UCLA - an interactive online learning resource for undergraduate students learning genomics from scratch.
  • Recorded teaching videos that are publicly available.
  • Contributed to the "Zoom teaching during COVID-19" tutorials.

As course instructor (UC Davis)

ANT 001 - Human Evolutionary Biology
  • Fall Quarter 2017
  • An introductory undergraduate class on biological anthropology. Course focused on using the tools of evolutionary biology to help us understand human origins and behavior. 
  • Co-designed lecture materials and exams.
  • Enrollment: 240.
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​ANT 153 - Human Biological Variation
  • Winter Quarter 2017; Summer Session II 2017; Winter Quarter 2016; Summer Session I 2016
  • An advanced undergraduate class on population genetics and evolutionary explanations of the biological variations in human. Course focused on genetic, phenotypic, diseases, and behavioral differences among humans, as well as theories, methods, and ethics related in scientific studies.
  • Designed the entire teaching package.
  • Enrollment: 70 in regular quarters during school years; 30 in summer sessions.

As guest lecturer and teaching assistant (UC Davis)

Over 5 years of grad school, I served as a teaching assistant and guest lecturer for several classes in Anthropology, including:
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ANT 157 - Anthropological Genetics - (guest lectured 2 classes)
ANT 153 - Human Biological Variation
ANT 054 - Introduction to Primatology - (guest lectured 1 class)
ANT 015 - Human Life Cycle - (guest lectured 1 class)
ANT 001 - Human Evolutionary Biology
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  • Home
  • Profile
  • Research
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  • Teaching
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  • NEWS and BLOG