teaching philosophy

i am excited about teaching and lifelong learning. in all my courses, I strive to create a motivating, energetic, and engaging learning experience. at stanford, i have taught the core me undergraduate/graduate courses e14 statics, me309 finite elements, and me338 continuum mechanics. i have also introduced three new multidisciplinary undergraduate/graduate courses, me239 mechanics of the cell, me334 mechanics of the brain, and me337 mechanics of growth. prior to joining stanford, i taught linear and nonlinear finite element methods and linear and nonlinear continuum mechanics at the universities of hannover, stuttgart, and kaiserslautern. at kaiserslautern, i taught the undergraduate courses statics, dynamics, and strength of materials with an enrollment of 314 and 289 students. at eth zurich, i taught the undergraduate course mechanics with an enrollment of 155 students.

in my e14 statics course, students took photographs of themselves, to create free body diagrams, which we summarized in a youtube movie. in my mechanics course at eth zurich, the students wanted to copy this idea, and made a similar youtube movie. in my me337 mechanics of growth course, students work in groups on individual research projects. every year, we publish successful projects as peer-reviewed journal article: bone growth in a stanford tennis player (Taylor et al.\,2009), skin growth in plastic surgery (Buganza Tepole et al.\,2011), bone growth in response to gait (Pang et al.\,2012), muscle growth in limb lengthening (Z\"ollner et al.\,2012), airway wall growth in asthma (Eskandari et al.\,2013), and skeletal muscle growth (Wisdom et al.\,2014). i have just introduced a new course, me334 mechanics of the brain, which was a tremendous success with both undergraduate and graduate students. within my twenty years of undergraduate and graduate teaching, i have always tried to challenge my students and create a stimulating atmosphere in class. for me, sharing knowledge with others and broadening my own horizon through interacting with students is one of the most rewarding experiences of being a professor at stanford!

spring 2015