Teaching and Leadership

Teaching Philosophy

Coming from Bhakkar, a village in Pakistan where more than half of the population is still uneducated, my desire to teach began nine years ago when I volunteered to teach English at a local youth organization. With no prior experience, I learned from mentors how to design lessons, communicate effectively, and help students improve their language skills. I grew to love preparing interactive practice sessions each day. I would identify areas needing improvement, such as grammar or sentence structure, and then research and design exercises to address these gaps. Although I was not paid for this work, the experience of turning a group of teenagers into more confident English speakers was immensely rewarding. This experience highlights the reason I am motivated to teach: I love the challenge of learning something new or taking a subject I already know and designing a curriculum that effectively conveys it, while witnessing the remarkable progress students can achieve in just a few months.

As a teaching assistant during my Environmental Engineering undergraduate program, I discovered the diversity of learning styles; some students excelled through lectures, others required more hands-on examples, and some students needed the one-on-one or small-group setting to feel comfortable asking questions. This galvanized my passion for teaching at a very early stage in my academic career.

During my PhD and postdoctoral research, I continued to develop my teaching style and pedagogical philosophy while improving my public-speaking and communication skills. Although the rules of my Marie Curie EU Horizon 2020 program did not allow formal teaching, I nevertheless supervised a Master 2 student and a BTS student, training them in the use of advanced analytical instruments (liquid chromatography, ICP-MS, TOC analyzer) and data interpretation. It is deeply satisfying to see my M2 student now pursuing a PhD and co-authoring one of my articles submitted to Environmental Science & Technology. As a postdoctoral researcher, teaching “Anglais et Insertion” and integrating interactive tools such as Wooclap opened my eyes to non-traditional teaching methods that keep students engaged and encourage participation from those who are less vocal. I also participated in the recruitment of a PhD student in our group, whom I continue to mentor, especially in setting up column-scale experiments to investigate diffusiophoretic transport of colloidal particles. These experiences have strengthened my belief that teaching and research are deeply complementary. As a future teacher-researcher, I aim to mentor students in geosciences and reactive transport, organize workshops on groundwater protection, and help build future generations of scientists committed to environmental sustainability.