Splash Biography
ALEXANDER EPSTEIN, Yale senior studying biology and chemistry
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Major: MCDB/Chemistry College/Employer: Yale Year of Graduation: 2018 |
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Brief Biographical Sketch:
I grew up five blocks from the Museum of Natural History in New York, and have loved science for as long as I can remember. Today I study cell biology in the Pollard Lab at Yale, and I hope to make research my full-time career. I love teaching. I strongly believe that if you truly understand something, you should be able to explain it in simple terms to nearly anyone. I have taught math to elementary school students during high school and at Yale, and for two years, wrote the elementary school curriculum for MathCounts Outreach at Yale. Every year, I still go back to my elementary school to teach third graders about my current research. My other interests include whistling, giant stuffed microbes, and exploring New York City. Past Classes(Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)S3206: Quantum Physics in Biology in Splash Spring 18 (Apr. 07, 2018)
Quantum mechanics tells us that photons and electrons sometimes act like particles, and sometimes act like waves. We're going to learn how studying these tiny things helps scientists understand living organisms as big as the human body! We'll also talk about how many of the biggest problems in science today can only be solved if researchers from drastically different disciplines work together.
C3047: Cell Biology Experimental Design in Sprout Spring 18 (Feb. 17 - Mar. 03, 2018)
If you want to know how a car works, you read the instruction manual – but cells don’t come with one. This class will teach you the basic strategies that all biologists use to figure out how cells work. You will also learn some of the most important tools in a cell biologist’s arsenal, including fluorescence microscopy, chromatography, and genome editing. In the last class, you will design an experiment with these tools to tackle an unanswered question in cell biology.
Loosely inspired by the first few lectures of Prof. Thomas Pollard's cell biology course at Yale.
S2930: Cell Biology Experimental Design in Splash Fall 17 (Nov. 11, 2017)
If you want to know how a car works, you read the instruction manual – but cells don’t come with one. This class will teach you the basic strategies that all biologists use to figure out how cells work. We’ll also learn some of the most important tools in a cell biologist’s arsenal, including fluorescence microscopy, chromatography, and genome editing. At the end of the class, you will design an experiment with these tools to tackle an unanswered question in cell biology.
Loosely inspired by the first few lectures of Prof. Thomas Pollard's cell biology course at Yale.
S2931: Evolutionary History in Splash Fall 17 (Nov. 11, 2017)
Are you a fish? That seems like a silly question, but according to evolutionary history, you just might be.
We'll start off by reviewing how evolution works, and how it creates new species. We'll learn how scientists use the tree of life to represent the complex relationships between the millions of species alive today. We'll talk about how we should classify organisms into groups (like mammals and birds) and why, evolutionarily speaking, people are actually fish.
In the second half, we’ll learn about cladistics and parsimony - how scientists used many small clues like the shape of a dinosaur’s pelvis to solve the puzzle of how species are related. You’ll then get some clues of your own, and use them to lay out a few branches of the tree of life.
S2757: Evolutionary History in Splash Spring 17 (Apr. 08, 2017)
Are you a fish? That seems like a silly question, but according to evolutionary history, you just might be.
We'll start off by reviewing how evolution works, and how it creates new species. We'll learn how scientists use the tree of life to represent the complex relationships between the millions of species alive today. We'll talk about how we should classify organisms into groups (like mammals and birds) and why, evolutionarily speaking, people are actually fish.
In the second half, we’ll learn about cladistics and parsimony - how scientists used many small clues like the shape of a dinosaur’s pelvis to solve the puzzle of how species are related. You’ll then get some clues of your own, and use them to lay out a few branches of the tree of life.
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