Leigh Ann Samsa

Bio

Dr. Leigh Ann Samsa is new to First Year Inquiry program and the Wolfpack community. She currently teaches in the Biotechnology department in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Her area of research is in biotechnology with a concentration on cell and molecular physiology that includes cell biology and genetics. She was drawn to the First Year Inquiry Program because of the opportunity to work with first-year students while also exploring different approaches to teaching.

Dr. Samsa integrates critical and creative thinking in her first-year course by pushing her students to independently take on different solutions to the same problem through hands-on experiences and a fusion of lecture and laboratory work.   She hopes her students will learn to critically approach solutions and recognize there is no black or white answer with good quality science.  This coming semester she will be teaching BIT 100 (sections 001Q and 201Q) Current Topics in Biotechnology, a survey course of biotechnology and where the discipline will be seen in the real world with an emphasis on its importance in our lives.