Jacob Dums
Resources and Links
Education
- B.S. – Biotechnology at University of Wisconsin – River Falls
- Ph.D. – Plant Biology at North Carolina State University
- Research Postdoc – Viral Ecology and Informatics Lab at University of Delaware
- Teaching Postdoc – Biotechnology Program at North Carolina State University
Teaching
- BISC207 – Introductory Biology I - Integrated with Chemistry
- BISC207 – Introductory Biology I
- BISC208 – Introductory Biology II
- BISC300 – Introduction to Microbiology
- BISC367 – Biology Career Pathways
- BISC479/679 – Introduction to Virology
Research Interests
Research Background:
My research experiences include my PhD work on microalgae biofuel production, metabolism, transcriptomics, and genetic engineering. My research postdoc at UD focused on viral metagenomics in aquatic environments, giant virus discovery, phage genomic engineering, and DNA polymerase diversity and biochemistry. The research/scholarship of my teaching postdoc at NC State included adapting courses for online learning, developing a VR laboratory, creating a Plant Genetic Engineering course, exploring the impacts of peer interactions on intelligence mindset, and assessing several courses.
While I do not have any active laboratory research, these experiences all influence my current education-focused research/scholarship interests.
Educational Research/Scholarship:
I am broadly interested in course and course material development and assessment, the development of student support tools, leveraging student talents, and leveraging instructor impact. I am a proponent of inquiry and experiential learning such as course-based research. I enjoy developing and assessing these experiences to democratize the experience of research to all students. I am also interested in exploring the impacts of student identity on STEM identity, belonging, and success.
Current Projects
As a teaching intensive faculty member I do not have graduate students or postdocs; however, when at all possible, I include undergraduate students in my scholarship projects.
Curriculum development
I am currently developing new active learning activities for primarily my Microbiology course. My broad goal is to engage students in exploration of microbiology beyond human disease or human-associated microbes. Activities range widely from short personal reflections to longer problem exploration and group discussions.
I am also well aware that we as humans tend to listen to and relate to what is familiar and what will impact ourselves. I want to leverage both of these concepts to capture student interest and have them interact with real data and projects. I particularly want to weave the science being done at UD into my classes as part of activities, assessments, case studies, etc. This has started with recruiting undergraduate researchers to synthesize their research into activities or interest stories.
Career Support and Exploration
Building on work from my teaching postdoc, I want to create courses and resources for our students to use to explore opportunities and to successfully gain those opportunities. I am currently adapting a Biology Career Pathways course from a previous course and collaborating with other faculty to develop resources that our student body can use.
