Katie Sieverman, PhD

Experience

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  The University of Texas at Austin

  Sept 2010 - Jul 2012

  Research Assistant

  I served as laboratory manager and research assistant in the laboratory of Dr. David Stein, working toward understanding the mechanisms of establishing dorsal-ventral polarity in the early Drosophila embryo. In addition to managing supplies, reagents and fly stocks, I created transgenic Drosophila lines to test our hypotheses on the function of the Drosophila serine proteases Gastrulation Defective (GD), Snake, and Easter. My work in Dr. Stein's lab led to a publication in Current Biology in June 2012. Show less

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  UC Berkeley

  Aug 2013 - Dec 2013

  Graduate Student Instructor

  I served as a Graduate Student Instructor for the upper-division course Survey of the Principles of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (MCB 102) in the fall semester of 2013. I led two weekly discussion sections totaling 60 students: this included lectures to emphasize course material, working through problems with students, facilitating discussion and answering questions, holding weekly office hours with students, and creating and administering quizzes.

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  University of California, Berkeley

  Jan 2015 - May 2018

  MCB 140L is an upper-division Genetics laboratory that provides hands-on experience for a wide array of genetics, molecular biology, and biochemistry concepts. I developed curriculum, created and delivered lectures, and assessed student learning for a section of the Spring 2018 semester MCB 140L course. I led the class through two main experiments: one focused on engineering a heterologous biosynthetic pathway in budding yeast using Cas9-mediated genome editing, and another focused on using budding yeast to characterize potential human disease-causing alleles of the Cystathionine Beta Synthase (CBS) gene. My lectures covered genomic engineering, inducible gene expression, promoter and terminator strength, budding yeast as a useful biosynthetic tool, evolutionary conservation of gene function, growth assays as a proxy for enzymatic function, protein expression and western blots, traditional and modern cloning techniques, bacterial and yeast transformation, DNA purification and sequencing, data collection and analysis, and how to form biological questions and answer them with a hypothesis-based approach in the laboratory. My role as an educator extended beyond giving lectures and assessing student performance. I gained valuable mentorship experience coaching my 56 students at the bench as they learned the many laboratory techniques that MCB 140L teaches. I also managed an excellent team of 4 Graduate Student Instructors who helped make the course a success. I had many conversations with students both in the classroom and in my weekly office hours about scientific topics that went deeper than those covered in the course, as well as career and graduate school advice. Show less Department of Molecular and Cell BiologyAdvisor: Jasper Rine, PhDAll living organisms on our planet are made up of cells. Some organisms like bacteria and certain types of fungi are single cells, while other organisms like humans are made up of trillions of cells. No matter how many cells are in an organism, every cell has the DNA that contains the instructions necessary to make that organism. The information that tells a cell what to do and when to do it is stored in the DNA as genes - in humans, for example, there are about 20,000 different genes in the DNA of each human cell. Each cell within an organism doesn’t use all of the genes in its DNA - many genes within a cell are turned off, or silenced. Differential gene expression allows the diversity of cell types found in nature. There are many ways that cells can turn on or off genes, and my research focused on one way to turn off genes that is accomplished by physically packaging certain regions of DNA so tightly that the genes within them are not accessible to the cell's gene expression machinery. Using the brewer's yeast and model research organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae, I investigated the intersection between two critical processes in biology: keeping silenced genes off and the repair of broken DNA molecules to maintain an intact genome. I found that when a silenced gene must participate in a type of DNA repair called homologous recombination, it sometimes loses its ability to stay silent and, instead, becomes temporarily expressed. Show less I worked on a team of four Graduate Student Instructors to help organize and run the upper-division Genetics laboratory course (MCB 140L). I taught a class of 44 junior and senior-level undergraduate students laboratory techniques of molecular biology and genetics using the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. I demonstrated and assisted students with techniques such as cloning, EMS mutagenesis, PCR, protein extraction, and Western blotting. Additionally, I helped create exam material and lab report guidelines, assisted students with the writing process involved in creating laboratory reports, and graded and provided feedback on exams and laboratory reports. Show less

  • Lecturer

    Jan 2018 - May 2018

  • Staff Research Associate III

    Jan 2018 - May 2018

  • PhD Candidate, Graduate Student Researcher

    Aug 2012 - Dec 2017

  • Graduate Student Instructor

    Jan 2015 - May 2015
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  University of Washington

  Dec 2018 - Jun 2020

  For the 2019-2020 academic year, I co-instructed Biology 200 with my fantastic mentor Dr. Mandy Schivell. Bio 200 is a large enrollment (up to 800 students!) introductory molecular and cell biology class for intended STEM majors. Our curriculum began with biochemical fundamentals of macromolecules and builds to incorporate the central dogma, cellular respiration, and ultimately cell-cell signaling, developmental biology, and biotechnology. I taught with research-backed active learning techniques and expanded my communication and leadership skills as a participant in the Biology Education Research Group meetings at UW. As with most great endeavors, I was not working alone - I worked as part of a large teaching team, collaborating with many TAs and full-time course staff/lab instructors. In addition to my academic role, I served on the Biology Department's Undergraduate Program Committee and Diversity and Equity Committee. My work with these committees focused on measuring and evaluating our undergraduate Biology major curriculum, with the goal of making data-informed recommendations for growth and further success of our undergraduate students. I also participated in ongoing efforts to improve equity and inclusion while expanding diversity within our degree program - this manifested in my role as a leader and mentor in front of the classroom and within internal conversations with my colleagues in the department. Show less Instructor-of-record for Biology 119, a human physiology lab designed for non-biology majors. Over two quarters, I instructed ~200 undergraduate students from academic backgrounds as diverse as finance and dance. I combined active learning techniques with hands-on physiology experiments spanning a large breadth of physiology curricula (vision, cardiovascular system, muscles, renal system, respiratory system, etc), and incorporated skills-based learning through a team poster project that culminated with a peer poster symposium. Leading and mentoring students through a lab-based exploration of how the human body works was rewarding, fantastic experience.Beyond my minimum required instructor duties, I also spearheaded curriculum improvements and redesign and initiated new aspects of course structure based on ongoing insights from the education research community (ex: flipped classroom format). Show less

  • Full-time Lecturer - Biology Department

    Sept 2019 - Jun 2020

  • Course Coordinator

    Jun 2019 - Aug 2019

  • Faculty Teaching Associate

    Dec 2018 - Jun 2019
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  McGraw Hill

  Nov 2020 - Jul 2022

  Science Content Manager, Actively Learn

  - Managed content production pipeline for grades 3-12 online science platform- Curated and wrote instructional components for science-related articles that help students better understand the world around them- Reviewed and edited content for quality assurance, provided feedback to team members to ensure we were always striving for excellence- Created engaging inquiry-driven instructional content rooted in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) framework - Developed systems and strategies for content and product management- Analyzed usage data and collaborated with product management team to drive content production and science platform decisions Show less

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  Fort Lewis College

  Aug 2022 - Jun 2023

  Visiting Assistant Professor

  - Taught a 12-hour teaching load across Genetics lecture (BIO 260) and Introductory Cell and Molecular Biology (BIO 113) lecture and lab for two semesters- Developed course curricula using backwards design focused on measurable learning objectives- Grew existing courses with novel student activities and assessments focused on improving student metacognition and making meaningful connections between content and students' personal lives- Participated in professional development workshops including: motivating students, inclusive course design, increasing self-efficacy and student agency, equitable assessment, building metacognition into curricula- Helped develop new departmental program and course learning outcomes- Mentored ~200 undergraduate students on their academic journeys- Participated in committee focused on re-designing student course evaluations to be less prone to bias and more meaningful toward improving teaching Show less

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  Codon Learning

  Jun 2023 - now

  Director of Content

  - Recruit and manage a team of content contributors- Develop and implement editorial standards for digital educational content- Serve as project manager for multiple large, complex projects- Conduct UX research and market research to ensure content and product align with market needs- Build a content roadmap and iterate on content strategy as needs and resources change- Author and edit a wide range of content including formative assessment questions, digital textbook replacement sections, and marketing materials- Collaborate with development team, director of product, customer experience team, and sales team to ensure customers have a positive experience and value the product Show less