Christina Ingrid Petersen

Associate Education Specialist

• Campus Phone: 612-625-5645
• Email: pete6647@umn.edu
• Office: University Office Plaza Suite 400, Room 403

Education

• B.S. University of Wisconsin, Zoology
• Ph.D. Vanderbilt University, Pharmacology

Teaching Interests

My educational background is in biomedical research and I am broadly interested in higher education pedagogy, science pedagogy, and the scientific process. I currently teach GRAD 8101 – Teaching in Higher Education, GRAD 8102 – Practicum for Future Faculty and have co-taught a section of PHAR 5112 devoted to the development of scientific presentation skills. I am also involved in community science outreach in the Twin Cities area where I teach classes related to biological and health science issues to older adult audiences. Other areas of teaching interests include:

• Collegiality in higher education
• Online teaching environments

Development Interests

I am currently working with the Applied and Professional Studies program as a faculty teaching consultant and have created customized workshops for individual departments. Other areas of personalized consultation interests include:

• Part-time/adjunct faculty
• Integrating active learning into science courses
• Group work in the classroom
• Preparing future faculty

Research Interests

My current research examines the factors that influence faculty approaches to teaching. Other areas of research interest include:

• The biological basis of learning/the brain and learning
• The genetic basis of human personality and cognitive traits
• Why does active learning work?

Selected Publications and Presentations

Petersen, C. and O’Brien, J. What constitutes evidence? Teaching approaches that faculty deem valuable do not correlate with the approaches that faculty judge to have supporting evidence. International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning annual conference, Liverpool, UK (2010).

Stepanovic, S. Z., Potet, F., Petersen, C. I., Smith, J.A., Meiler, J., Balser, J.R. and Kupershmidt, S. The evolutionarily conserved residue A653 plays a key role in HERG channel closing Journal of Physiology 587.11, 2555–2566 (2009).

Potet, F., Petersen, C.I., Boutaud, O., Shuai, W., Stepanovic, S. Z., Balser, J. R. and Kupershmidt, S. Genetic Screening in C. elegans Identifies Rho-GTPase Activating Protein 6 as Novel HERG Regulator. Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology doi:10.1016/j.yjmcc.2008.10.015 (2008).

Petersen, C. I., McFarland, T. R., Stepanovic, S. Z., Reiner, D. J., Yang, P., George, A. L., Roden, D. M., Thomas, J. H., and Balser, J. R. In vivo identification of genes that modify ether-a-go-go-related gene activity in Caenorhabditis elegans may also affect human cardiac arrhythmia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101, 11773-11778 (2004).