Together with Professor Steve Alexander, we used a combination of genetic, biochemical and cell biological approaches to understand why cancer cells become resistant to the widely used drug cisplatin, and to develop methods to increase the efficiency of the drug, using the model organism Dictyostelium discoideum as a primary genetic system, and subsequently translating the results to human cells.

Following my retirement from bench science, I developed interest in promoting the public’s understanding and appreciation of the role of science in our everyday lives. My activities are geared toward providing training for students to explain their science to the general public and generating opportunities for them to do so.

I developed two graduate-level courses for the Division of Biological Sciences and a graduate certificate in science outreach. In the Public Understanding of Science course, students are mentored as they prepare presentations about a scientific topic of their choice, depicting the role of science in these issues, and deliver them to lay adult audiences in the community. Integrating Science with Outreach is a vehicle for graduate students to acquire academic credit for science outreach related activities they are involved with. The Science Outreach Graduate Certificate is based on 6 credit hours of academic work, and 6 credit hours of outreach activities.

I have been focused on promoting science outreach more broadly. I adopted Public Understanding of Science to an undergraduate course at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, and to high school science classes. I have been a member of the Outreach and Education Committee of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), where I have been involved in the development and tutoring of the “Art of Science Communication,” an online course focused on providing fundamental science communication skills to students, faculty and science related professional.