Scientists broaden our understanding of the natural world everyday. However, another role of scientists that is too often forgotten or overlooked, is to educate others. Below are some of the programs and activities I have been involved in to fulfill that role.
Teaching
Classroom Instruction
I have co-developed and co-teach a graduate level course in Artificial Intelligence (HAI 100B) as part of Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University’s PhD program in Health Artificial Intelligence. The course courses topics including, but not limited to:
- Expert Systems
- Probability
- Uncertainty
- Logic
- Semantic Networks
- Knowledge Organization Systems
- Tree-Base Machine Learning
- Heuristics and Search Systems
- Intelligent Agents
- Data Science
- Automated Machine Learning
- Rule-Based Machine Learning
Invited Lectures & Seminars
I have given the following invited classroom lectures:
- “Inferring opioid use disorder severity from clinical notes: an annotation study” in Dr. Danielle Mowery’s graduate Informatics class at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics.
- “Using R in your Research” in Dr. Edwin Li’s graduate Research Techniques class at Saint Joseph’s University Department of Biology.
Advising Experience
In total, I have advised 13 undergraduate and graduate students and interns in research across my positions in academia. One of the most rewarding things to experience as a scientist is to see young people embark on their own research journeys and fall in love with the scientific process.
Teaching Assistant
As a Teaching Assistant at Kansas State University, I had the opportunity to teach two courses: the R User Group from 2015-2016, a group that teaches core principles of R to new users and a course entitled “Insects and People” in the Fall of 2016. “Insects and People” focused on core principles of insect biology, physiology, evolution, and the interactions with insects and people. These interactions included how insects currently affect, and have affected, agriculture, history, faith, and pop culture. I was also a teaching assistant for “Cellular Biology” laboratory at Saint Joseph’s University in Spring of 2010.
GK-12 Science Outreach Educator
From 2012-2014, I taught science classes in inner-city Philadelphia as a GK-12 Teaching Fellow in a program, Geokids LINKS. The program is a collaboration between GK-12, Saint Joseph’s University, and the Wagner Free Institute of Science of Philadelphia that teaches science enrichment classes to grade school students enrolled in Philadelphia’s public school system.
SNAP Educator
SNAP or Science, Nature, and Art in Philadelphia, is a program stemming from the Wagner Free Institute of Science, for 6th through 8th graders than focuses on preparing students for science and mathematics courses in high school. As a SNAP educator from 2012-2014, I taught a number of science and mathematics courses in Philadelphia public schools to instill the importance of STEM and encourage students to pursue STEM career paths.
Noyce Intern
The Philadelphia Summer Bridge Program was a series of courses I co-taught as a Noyce Intern over the summer of 2010 to Philadelphia public school students on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. It was a collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania, Saint Joseph’s University, and the Philadelphia School District that focused on preparing public school students, transitioning from grade school to high school, in the sciences and mathematics.
Science Outreach
Featured Columnist – “Practical Science with Phil Freda”
Below are science articles that I wrote between 2012 and 2013 as featured columnist for Patch.com’s Upper Moreland, Pennsylvania site. Patch.com is a hyper-local online new source. Click on the links below and have a read. Please feel free to comment below.
They can also be found online at https://patch.com/users/philip-freda/articles
1.) When the Earth wiper her slate clean … again and again and again and …
2.) The Theory of Evolution Made Simple
4.) Plants: Our Silent Overlords
5.) The Unified Forces of the Universe
6.) Is it a bird, a plane – no, it’s … a supernova?
7.) Resurrecting the dead: A second chance for the woolly mammoth?
8.) The science behind regenerative medicine
9.) The Incredible, Edible, Floating Egg!
10.) Chernobyl Aftermath – Life Always Finds a Way
11.) Symbiosis – Perfect Match of Fatal Attraction?
12.) A World within a World: The Rise of the Prokaryotes
13.) The Secrets of DNA
14.) Einstein and the Relativity of Time
16.) Gregor Mendel: “The Father of Modern Genetics”
17.) Regenerative Medicine Update: First “Proto-Eye” Grown in Lab
18.) The Science Behind Black Holes
19.) A New Revolution in Medicine: What “Bacteria Type” Are You?
20.) Why Do We Sleep?
21.) Our Ever-Changing World: The Theory of Plate Tectonics
22.) How It Works: Photosynthesis
23.) Biology’s Most Amazing Lists: Lethal Venoms and Deadly Chemicals
24.) Biology’s Most Amazing Lists: The Top 10 New Species of 2011
25.) Water, Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Spare
27.) Biology’s Amazing Processes: Bioluminescence
29.) Biology’s Amazing Processes: Echolocation
30.) NASA Travels Into the Great Unknown
31.) Fruits of Evolution: Whales
32.) Biology’s Amazing Processes: Migration
34.) Is there No More Room for God?
35.) Practical Science Profiles: The Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust
36.) A Cure for Leukemia?
37.) Fruits of Evolution: Birds
38.) Gesundheit! Yes, It’s Allergy Season Again
39.) Haiti’s Diverse Ecosystems in Peril
40.) How Scientists May Save Cats from FIV
41.) Practical Science Profiles: Edward O. Wilson
42.) Autumn ‘Leaves’
44.) How it Works: Global Climate Change
45.) The Science of Snow
46.) Breaking the Habit on Breaking New Year’s Resolutions
47.) The Search for Other Earths
Practical Science Videos:
The Incredible, Edible, Floating Egg!
Global Climate Change with Dr. Clint Springer, Professor of Biology at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.
Practical Science Profiles: The Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust (PERT)
Philip J. Freda, Jr., Ph.D. 
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