I was the Lead Teaching Assistant for Dartmouth’s off-campus semester in Field Methods in Geology (better known as “The Stretch“) in Spring and Fall of 2022. This program is a two-month, off-campus traverse across the western US. I supporting field-based instruction, provided leadership and guidance to the team of graduate TAs, and assisted with all aspects of course logistics. The Stretch immerses undergraduates in hands-on data collection and interpretation — from glacial geophysics in the Canadian Rockies to bedrock and surficial mapping across national parks, culminating in a traverse through the Grand Canyon.

I designed and taught a one-day crash course in astrobiology set in the hot springs of the Eastern Sierra, near Mono Lake. My curriculum introduced students to how modern geothermal systems can serve as analogs for the origins of life on Earth and for hydrothermal environments on other planetary bodies, emphasizing the methods by which we detect and interpret microbial signatures under extreme conditions.