STATEMENT OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Viorel D. Popescu
An ecologist must be, above all, a teacher and a lifelong apprentice, and I am motivated to make
teaching an important part of my career and life. My perspective was shaped early, when I discovered the
value of nature experiences and learning from traditional ecological knowledge while working on
grassroots conservation and environmental education projects in my native country of Romania (>10
years ago). But even more powerful were my experiences as an instructor, and none more illustrative than
the first day of a herpetological monitoring techniques field class that I taught at Cranberry Lake
Biological Station, Adirondack Mountains. For one junior-level student majoring in Environmental
Biology, born and raised in a big city, it was the first time he had caught a frog in the wild. That
experience was transformative for the student, as well as for me. Simple things like catching a frog, which
many of us as field ecologists take for granted, are becoming rare experiences, especially for an
increasingly urban student (and global) population. But the good news is that ecology is never farther than
a frog’s leap away, and basic learning experiences can dramatically change our perspectives of the natural
world. In comparison to other sciences, ecology has the benefit of being able to relate thorny and
complicated concepts to personal nature experiences and the surrounding environment. We have the
opportunity to transform a simple experience in nature into a field class; a hike into a seminar; and a
lecture into a debate. This makes ecology powerful, inspiring, and capable of influencing students beyond
the classroom.
As such, my goal as an educator is to assist students in developing the skills needed to address
complex environmental issues, and foster a passion for life-long learning. I believe in providing students
with a strong theoretical foundation, and then create interactive opportunities to apply their understanding
of ecological mechanisms through real-world examples, many generated from my education and research
experiences in Europe and North America. Lecture halls, seminar rooms, computer labs, and the outdoors
are all different teaching environments, and I seek to provide students with tools to actively participate in
the teaching process suited for each setting. I aim to create an intellectually stimulating teaching
environment by fostering critical thinking, and instilling an inquisitive spirit, while paying attention to
personal learning styles. I value student input on teaching methods and material, and I periodically assess
the level of knowledge gained during class using both formative and summative approaches.
During my graduate studies and postgraduate experiences I actively sought opportunities to teach,
develop lectures, and course material. At the State University of New York, Syracuse, I served as an
instructor for a field course on Monitoring techniques for herpetofauna, and as a teaching assistant for
two undergraduate: Herpetology, Conservation Biology, and one graduate course: Geographical
Modeling. At Simon Fraser University (Spring 2014), I co-taught an undergraduate seminar focused on
Renewable energies and Biodiversity: Conflicts and opportunities (Simon Fraser University, Faculty of
Environment). For this class, I successfully used a combination of breakout group discussions, in-class
debates (students assumed roles of stakeholder groups), field trips to renewable energy projects, and guest
speakers (industry, ENGO, government) to elicit student participation and achieve a deeper understanding
of trade-offs between conservation and economic development.
As a new faculty member, I would enjoy developing courses that incorporate field and
quantitative techniques used in my past and current research: field experiments, statistical techniques
(mixed effects models, occupancy models), population modeling (matrix models, resource selection
functions), and spatial analyses. I am also interested in teaching basic and applied courses on topics such
as Ecological monitoring, Herpetology, Spatial Ecology, or Wildlife ecology. Teaching or co-teaching one
or more field courses would be a high priority. I also enjoy developing undergraduate seminars on current
topics/trends in ecology and conservation in which class participation is a major component of the course.
In my experience, such seminars promote critical thinking and challenge the students’ abilities to
synthesize information across fields of study.
I have found that getting excited about science and using current issues in ecology and
conservation for class exercises strengthens the connection between myself and students, and enables
them to achieve academic excellence. I believe that this philosophy applies equally to student mentoring,
a critical part of the education process, which I find immensely rewarding. Thus, one of my main goals as
an educator is to build a research environment that fosters creativity, in which students share their passion
for the natural world, and develop as scientists supporting effective decision-making.
Throughout my graduate and postdoctoral tenures I delivered invited lectures, developed student
workshops, and mentored students individually or in small groups. At the University of Maine I was one
of the initiators of the Wildlife Ecology Dept. Undergraduate Mentoring Group where I assisted students
with resume building, job applications, and developing fieldwork skills. At Simon Fraser University, I
became deeply involved in undergraduate and graduate student supervision within the Earth to Ocean
Research Group (30+ graduate students from five research groups). At SFU, I co-supervised an Honors
thesis, and I am currently co-supervising one graduate student and several undergraduate research
projects. I have found that involving undergraduate students in research provides a rich mentoring
environment, and I have worked closely with several students through all phases of the research endeavor,
from the inception of research projects to writing and publishing manuscripts. Through this process I
recognize the importance of creating an environment open to dialogue, adapting to individual learning
styles, being available, and setting short- and long-term goals in student research. The result of these
projects have been several student first-authored papers on highly quantitative topics, such as occupancy
and distribution modeling, and conservation planning (manuscripts in review and in preparation), as well
as student co-authorship on other research papers that I lead. I will continue my commitment to involving
undergraduate students in field and computational research, to provide a platform for developing original
and conservation-relevant research that cuts across levels of biological organization, and to encourage
student collaborations with management agencies.