Hello! I’m Dr. Margaret Sonnenfeld.

I combine my scientific research/teaching experiences and passion for pedagogical/course design to establish connections with students & provide relevant, innovative, and engaging lessons in undergraduate biology. My best practices are student centered, and I am committed to promoting equity, diversity and inclusion in undergraduate education.

I want to excite students about learning biology while keeping them engaged and on task in both remote and face-to-face settings. I strive to develop inclusive lessons that will entice as many learners as possible by beginning with the ‘why should you care?’. Toward these goals, I have been developing technological skills to design and build engaging and interactive activities. I hope you will take a look through my site to see what engaging lessons and alternative assessments I’ve come up with! Feel free to use and/or adapt as many lessons/activities as you like.

I believe that the biggest influencer of my educational strategies was my international travels as a child. These world experiences opened my eyes at an early age to the diversity that exists in the world. It was my parents who reinforced my ability to embrace such diversity in my everyday life.

I’ve actually had the pleasure of working with undergraduate students since 1990! (No, actually 1988 and Yup, that’s over 30 years). I obtained my PhD in Developmental Genetics from McMaster University in 1995. Then, I took my family down to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for another amazing adventure in investigating which genes ‘tell’ cells to become who they are meant to be!

I was raised by academics and followed their footsteps into my first job as a research professor in 1998 in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Ottawa. I was identifying which genes were most important in controlling the development of the central nervous and tracheal systems in fruit fly embryos. I transitioned into strictly undergraduate education twelve years later. I am lucky that my training ground has been TRU for the last eight years where I’ve now taught six different courses and five different labs. Here, I’ve been able to focus on designing active-learning strategies to help students learn one of my great loves–BIOLOGY.

Please explore my site to get an idea of what I feel is important as a biology instructor in lectures, labs and tutorials.

Don’t miss out on this!!!! What do orangutans have to do with all of this? Check out how I bring orangutans into TRU classrooms here https://msonnenfeld.trubox.ca/supporting-our-communities/ This promotes awareness and support for our communities (Human & otherwise) around the world.