Education | training "antedisciplinary" scientists
Classroom Teaching
Robin teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses listed in several departments (MCD Biology, Applied Math, Computer Science, Chemistry) at the University of Colorado Boulder. She also regularly serves as a guest lecturer for graduate courses in the Computational Bioscience Program at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Students seeking information on the courses Robin teaches should follow the link below.
Educational Outreach
In addition to our work in the classroom and the lab, we often offer informal educational seminars and online training in various aspects of computational biology. We also engage with local high school students, both by inviting them into the lab and by working with them on their campuses.
Please see our biological data science education site for more information about our workshops and tutorials, including our annual Short Read Sequencing Workshop.
Mentoring
Most of our learning in science takes place outside the classroom. The foundational material we cover in classes and educational labs serves as a stepping stone to the exciting work of actually doing science, be it in the field, research lab, or computer room. Our goal is to equip "antedisciplinary" scientists to capably address modern biological questions that interest them. We recognize that achieving this goal can require knowledge of a diverse set of skills that cross traditional academic boundaries. To that end, we recruit graduate students from across the biological and computational sciences. We accept graduate students from CU-Boulder's Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Computer Science, and Applied Mathematics departments, as well as CU-Denver's Computational Bioscience Program and the BioFrontiers Institute's program in Interdisciplinary Quantitative Biology (IQ Biology).
iGEM is an undergraduate synthetic biology competition, featuring over 200 collegiate teams from around the world. Between 2012 and 2015, CU-Boulder's team was led by Dowell Lab grad students Tim Read and Joe Rokicki, and Robin consulted for teams through 2017. iGEM is a summer-long, project-based research experience where teams of undergraduates engage in a synthetic biology competition, working to design, construct, and operate biological circuits of their own design in living cells (typically E. coli). At the end of the summer, they present their creations at the iGEM Jamboree, an international science fair-styled competition. Follow the link below for more information about 2012-2018 CU-Boulder iGEM team.
The IQ Biology program, offered through the BioFrontiers Institute, trains scientists to effectively utilize computational and mathematical resources to address biological questions. Students learn in an interdisciplinary community before choosing a final PhD degree program. Robin is an IQ Biology faculty member, and accepts graduate students for rotation in the lab. For more information about the IQ Biology program, follow the link below.