Education

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

My goal as an educator is to provide an inclusive educational program that builds on both my experiences as a woman engineer and on the psychology concept of self-efficacy.¹ This Self-Efficacy Education Program (SEEP) aims at creating an environment that maximizes the factors affecting students’ self-efficacy to empower a diverse cohort of students with the skills and knowledge to become the next generation of leaders in the Biomedical Engineering.

Research shows that the 4 main factors affecting self-efficacy are:

  1. Achieving successful past performances that build confidence,
  2. Interacting positively with successful role models
  3. Receiving support and encouragement
  4. Normalizing the physiological aspects of stress.

Using the concept of self-efficacy as a framework, I aim to provided these 4 factors by:

  • Facilitating access to hands-on and didactic experiences
  • Increasing participation of a diverse student populations by providing role models via outreach
  • Offering student support via mentoring.

¹[Bandura, A., Social learning theory. 1977]

teaching students
teaching students

DIDACTIC EXPERIENCES

BME/MSE 3700:Biomaterials (offered in the Spring Semester)
This class aims to teach students the basics of materials science within a biological context and apply that knowledge to develop solutions to medical problems. Using medical/dental case studies students are given the opportunity to develop their problem solving skills, literature analysis, and creativity. This creates a positive environment for learning where students get experience with being an engineer leading to increased self-sufficiency.

DENT 5432: Dental Materials (offered biannually in the Spring Semester)
This class is part of the core curriculum for the dental residency master’s program. It focuses on developing the needed critical skills and competencies in health sciences design thinking by teaching relevant content to professionals using experiential project-based collaborative learning. I seek to help the dentists acquire the skills to tackle and successfully overcome the challenges in emerging dental materials.

ILO: Dance and Physics (Offered in Block B/D)
The goal of this class is to use bodily motion to physically integrate the concepts of Newtonian physics. Principals of dance from classical ballet, modern dance, pole dance, and Bharatanatyam among others are used to explain gravity, friction, torque, momentum, and force. Taught in conjunction with professional dancers and physical therapists this class aims to give a physics content to the ways in which we use our bodies as medical professionals.

LAB EXPERIENCES

I aim to bring in a diverse populations of students for hands-on lab experiences. That includes diversity of knowledge, experience, and identity.

High School Opportunities:
Sadly, I am not currently taking high school students due to space/time limitations

Undergraduate Opportunities:
Health Research Program: https://ugradresearch.uconn.edu/hrp/
Summer Undergraduate Research Fund: https://ugradresearch.uconn.edu/surf/
Partnership in Innovation and Education: https://ctpieinfo.org/
Volunteer or Independent Study Opportunities: Contact Dr. Alix (deymier@uchc.edu)

Dental/Medical School Opportunities:
Summer Research Program: Contact Dr. Alix (deymier@uchc.edu)

Graduate Opportunities:
I accept BMS rotation students and all collaborators. Please contact Dr. Alix (deymier@uchc.edu)

deymier lab students

OUTREACH & MENTORING

Society of Women Engineers: https://swe.rso.uconn.edu/
oSTEM: https://uconntact.uconn.edu/organization/ostem

Dance and Physics: This class is also offered as an outreach workshop. Reach out to Dr. Alix for information.

Office hours: T/Th 9:00-10:30 am at Storrs (location TBD) in the Spring Semester only

Individual mentoring: contact Dr. Alix (deymier@uchc.edu)