My longstanding interest in pedagogy began when I myself was an undergraduate. My experiences teaching computer science, writing, and neurobiology have taught me how to centre a course on the students rather than on the teacher, to work with each student’s profile of cognitive strengths, and to draw out the subject during discussion and active learning. I discovered early on that good teaching has a great deal in common with good theatre; to engage an audience one must connect with the subject not only intellectually but emotionally. I’m especially interested in teaching that bridges disciplines, and would enjoy teaching a course that links neuroscience and developmental psychology to literature and the arts.

I’m very keen on making writing a significant component of my courses. At Cornell, in cooperation with the Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, I teach a writing-intensive seminar on autism modelled in part on my experience of the Cambridge supervisions system: reading the primary research literature, students prepare their thoughts for each class meeting by crafting a brief essay. Discussion in class then begins from the contents of the essays, and critical thinking takes wing from critical writing. A great many students of the sciences never stop to consider the reality that scientific observations must be communicated and interpreted within narrative frames. Writing in scientific disciplines can be an opportunity for students to learn the art involved in communicating science.

I work extensively with undergraduate and master’s-level students of applied computer science and biomedical engineering. My most significant involvements in this regard are with students who apply computer science to the design and development of experimental video games, and to the analysis of behavioural and physiological data collected during these game-based experiments. These collaborations are always interactive, and designs and implementations are always iteratively refined. In the process, students of computer science learn how their game-design visions can be realised within the scientific constraints of an experiment, and neuroscience students reflect on what is essential to their projects and how game-design goals can be accommodated without compromising the scientific objectives.

I’m a strong supporter of the integration of classroom and residential learning, having been heavily involved in the undergraduate residence system at MIT and Cornell. Involvement in residential life allows teachers to demonstrate by example the ideal of a living-learning community, in which education doesn’t stop at the classroom door. At Cornell, most recently, I’ve helped organise speakers and events focusing on the cultural significance of autism and Asperger syndrome, involving students beyond the bounds of biological and psychological sciences and making autism spectrum conditions the subject of cultural discourse.

At the graduate level, my teaching is gaining more of an emphasis on experimental techniques, both those specific to developmental disorders and those relevant to cognitive neuroscience more broadly. My colleagues at Cornell have taken an interest in using the cognitive neurophysiology laboratory that I built for autism research as a tool in their own investigations of cognitive development, decision-making, and personality. In parallel, as a result of an NIH equipment proposal to which I contributed, Cornell will soon be acquiring a magnetic resonance scanner and associated engineering facilities. As a result of these developments I’m planning to give my graduate course more of a focus on experimental design and techniques for event-related potentials and fMRI, in addition to the theoretical issues and behavioural techniques for quantitative assessment of the autism spectrum that I currently cover.