Shelley N Thai

Courses Taught:

Biology 101

Biology 112

Biology 120

Biology 140

Biology 141

Biology 298

Academic Information:

B.S., Biology, University of California, Los Angeles

Ph.D., Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, Los Angeles

Biography:

I am a Professor of Biology in the Biology Division. I received both a B.S. degree in Biology and a Ph.D. degree in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles. I was originally interested in medicine but changed my career goal after conducting independent research in a plant lab as a second year undergraduate. I loved the challenge and excitement of studying the unknown and decided to enter the graduate program, where I studied the mechanism of inhibiting blood vessel development to control tumor growth, cancer. After receiving my doctorate degree, I taught and helped to develop the curriculum for an undergraduate research-based course in the Life Sciences at UCLA. This was when I realized my love for teaching and motivating and helping students reach their academic and career goal. I left research to gain more teaching experience. After teaching Biology courses for the majors at UCLA, CSULA, and West LA, I joined the faculty at GCC in 2007, a place where I call my second home. At GCC, I established and currently coordinate a student-lead anatomy tutoring program at the Biology Collaborative Learning Center (BCLC) to help Anatomy and Human Biology students succeed in their respective course and developed the Biology 298 – Undergraduate Research in Microbiology and Microbiology to provide our students authentic, hands-on research experience before transferring to the university. Many of the research students have presented at local and national research conferences, transferred to top UCs, and have been accepted into professional health science programs.