Dr. Jennifer Tsui Joins Science and Mathematics Department

Marygrove’s Science and Mathematics Department continues to grow as it welcomes Dr. Jennifer Tsui (pronounced “Sway”), a Michigan native who has explored the science realm as a student and researcher. Tsui will join Marygrove’s faculty as a full-time science professor for the 2012 Winter Semester.

Although Dr. Tsui has spent many years doing research, she prefers sociable environments, such as a classroom with her students.

I like more personal interaction than what normally happens in research," she said. "I want a more immediate impact on people, where research can take more time before you actually impact people’s lives. I spent a lot of time in little rooms with microscopes.” 

Next semester, Dr. Tsui will teach introductory biology for majoring students and senior research seminars, which complements her background in cell and molecular biology and immunology. Tsui also plans to teach a general science course, which she enjoyed teaching last semester as an adjunct.

Dr. Tsui has a professional interest in neuroscience, having focused her doctorate and current research on it. Neuroscience, the study of the nervous system, overlaps into many academic areas, including, said Tsui, Marygrove’s Social Justice and Psychology departments. She hopes to explore its interdisciplinary potential to teach her own neuroscience course.

Tsui also aspires to improve science education in Kyrgyzstan. It started after graduate school, when Tsui traveled to the central Asian country to teach several week-long laboratory classes.

I randomly decided to go there but I wanted to do something more meaningful than tourism,” she said. “Schools over there are advanced in their learning material but the lab aspects are completely missing due to a lack of resources and training.

Tsui plans to change this. She hopes to design a science education course prompting students to brainstorm different models of teaching. They could implement these methods directly into a Kyrgyzstan classroom for a travel seminar. As of now, it’s just an idea, but then again, Dr. Tsui has only just arrived.