1. Teaching Philosophy Statement
Teaching Experience: During my time as a postdoctoral teaching and research associate at the University of Georgia, I taught Economics of Renewable Resources as the instructor of record. I also taught five courses in the undergraduate and graduate level at the same university as a teaching assistant. I developed primary materials, gave lectures, conducted field labs and computer labs, graded assignments and exams. I was recognized with the “UGA Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award” in 2020. Because of my dedication towards teaching and student success, I completed 5-credit hours of workshops required for the Center for Teaching and Learning Transcript at the University of Georgia. Additionally, I presented and won several awards in oral/poster presentations, including the Best Presentation Award in the Society of American Foresters (SAF) National Convention 2020. I believe, these experience and awards that can attest to the effectiveness of my role as an educator.
I first started to teach when I was 16 years old. I tutored many middle and high school students since then. I also taught students from various age groups for verbal and quantitative sections for the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) in both small and large classrooms. These experiences provided me with the ability to ensure effective learning and to handle the classroom better. My Teaching Perspective Inventory (TPI) survey results suggests that two of my strongest suits are developmental and nurturing, and that seems to support my view on teaching. I will reflect and improve my teaching based on the evaluations. My teaching evaluation records, suggest that I am effective, relatable, approachable, enthusiastic, fair, and dependable.
Teaching Philosophy: A critical part of my mission as an assistant professor is to ensure that learning occurs and my method to accomplish that mission is to make the subject matter interesting and fun.
Education is most effective when it also entertains. In my experience, students who are enjoying themselves are the most engaged and have the best learning outcomes. They educate themselves naturally when they find a topic interesting. The contract between a teacher and a student is not that the teacher should be a narrator for the content in books, but to make the subject matter exciting enough so that students spend their time on it enthusiastically. I use a variety of techniques to make the content enjoyable. I use references from popular books, movies, and TV series and create a connection with the content. For example, while teaching regression analysis, I may refer to the movie Ford Vs Ferrari to justify Ford’s historical decision to invest more on racing cars to win international races and get brand recognition, so that their affordable car sale gets a boost. Here, the dependent variable is sale of affordable cars, and one of the independent variables is investment on racing cars. Another way students learn best in through experiential learning—when information is put into perspective by seeing knowledge in action. For a class such as forest economics, students would visit nearby forests and timber mills, and learn what they are optimizing or modeling for. Obviously, there will be parts of the subject matter that will provoke questions and require explanation from the instructor. I will fulfill my role doing just that—satisfy students’ thirst of knowing more. In my classroom, students will find a prepared instructor who focused not only on the content, but also made the content interesting.
When students join a class, there is a gap between what the students know and what they should know about the subject matter to succeed in that course. This gap is not the same length for everyone and not everyone can cross his or her individual gap at the same pace. In my class, all students will be given a chance to get up to speed about the subject matter. Student volunteers will be encouraged to perform this task within the first week of class. In my Economics of Renewable Resources class, students required
In addition, students will get an overview of all the course materials at the beginning of the course. Moreover, they will get the bigger picture on how the course may fit in their future goals. Students will take active part in learning throughout the duration of the course. After brief lectures, discussions with other students and solving problems among themselves will be emphasized in the classroom. Students will be divided into groups, whenever possible, to debate themselves about bifurcating ideas and reach a logical solution.
Without a doubt, there needs to be some technique to measure how much learning has occurred. Students will be tested based on their understanding of the core subject matter, not on memorizing bits that can be googled easily. In the test, students will get everything they can get their hands on in the real-world scenario. They will need to use their knowledge they acquire from the class to solve the problems presented in the test. Alongside students’ growth, instructor should grow as well. Students will provide multiple evaluations of my teaching, not just the official one at the end of the semester. One evaluation within two weeks of first class and one around mid-term would help me better steer the lessons.
To conclude my teaching philosophy, I would like to rephrase Sir Ken Robinson, a famous educational reformer. He said that education is not an industrial system, but an organic system where learning and creativity can flourish by nurturing the field. I could not agree more. In my class, students will be nurtured, not programmed, to achieve their maximum creativity, as I will take my role as a facilitator to ensure that learning has occurred.
Future Teaching Interests: I am excited to and capable of teaching an array of courses encompassing economics and the environment. I can teach Economics of Renewable Resources and Renewable Resource Policy since I already taught these courses before. Below is a list of courses, included but not limited to, I am ready to teach—
Course level |
Course Name |
Lecture Hours |
Lab hours |
Undergraduate |
Economics of Renewable Resources |
3 |
1 |
Energy Systems |
3 |
1 |
|
Environmental Economics |
3 |
1 |
|
Forest Economics and Management |
3 |
1 |
|
Sustainability in Energy and Environment |
3 |
|
|
Graduate |
Forest Carbon Modeling |
3 |
1 |
Scientific Research |
3 |
|
|
University Teaching Practicum |
3 |
|
|
Bioeconomy seminar |
1 |
|
|
Combined |
Life cycle assessment |
3 |
1 |
Renewable Resource Policy |
3 |
|
Academic, Professional, and/or Community Service Experience: I am proud to have fulfilling experience in the academic, professional, and community service area. I was a teaching assistant for three and a half years and a postdoctoral teaching and research associate for one year at the University of Georgia. After joining the Argonne National Laboratory, I supervised a Summer Undergraduate Laboratory Intern (SULI) on an economic feasibility of bioenergy study in the Appalachian region. I also volunteered as a mentor in the Argonne ACT-SO High School Research program, which helps young an inquisitive African-American high school students foster their curiosity in scientific research, supervise them in various science projects and competitions. I performed my scientific duty as a reviewer for several journals.
In terms of community service, I was the president of Bangladeshi Student Association, University of Georgia which was a part of ISL (International Student Life). In that role, I fostered intercultural collaboration, arranged international coffee hour and international street festival. I conducted online vocabulary lectures based on my book VocaBuilder which has been watched over a million times in YouTube alone. I also created another online course for academic writing. These online courses provided me with the satisfaction of community service and experience to facilitate distance learning. Besides my academic science communication through scientific articles, posters, and presentations, I am also involved in popular science communication. I have an organization called Bigganjatra, translated as The Voyage of Science, through which we arranged several science fairs and demonstrations in the underprivileged schools in Bangladesh. The website contains over 500 semi peer-reviewed popular science articles. I also published two magazine volumes from this platform. Its Facebook page has over 60 thousand followers.
Conclusion: I believe that I have the necessary experience, skills, and passion for teaching. I am prepared to teach exciting classes and develop new courses as the Energy and Resources Group (ERG) and Rausser College of Natural Resources requires and as the next generation of passionate students need.
2. Statement of Research Interest
I chose to research in the field of environment and economics because I believe in nature-based solutions, and I am moved by the concept of sustaining the environment so that my next generation can cherish it. I have over ten years of research experience in this field, and I use life cycle assessment, technoeconomic analysis, advanced mathematical programming, supply chain optimization for my research. I published extensively on the topics such as energy generation, natural resource economics and policy, carbon emissions, and climate change.
Research Experience: I currently work on the life cycle assessment of marine biofuels from several waste and biomass feedstocks. I authored the latest 2022 GREET (Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation) report and added five new marine biofuel pathways. I am also working on methanol and ammonia as a marine fuel from various feedstocks. I compare their carbon and other criteria air pollutants emissions and estimate the carbon tax necessary to make them competitive against their fossil fuel counterparts. My work on full cost accounting and life cycle analysis of wood-based energy has been published in respected peer-reviewed journals such as Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Annual Review of Resource Economics, Forest Policy and Economics, and Forests. These articles estimate the feedstock cost, unit cost of electricity, carbon emissions of biopower, and the marginal carbon abatement cost of biopower generation. These studies forecast the trajectory of sustainable wood-based bioenergy development and provide price competitive cleaner alternatives of fossil fuels that can mitigate the adverse impact of climate change.
My research on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from carinata was published in GCB Bioenergy, Frontiers in Energy Research, Bioenergy Research. These studies show various economic and environmental aspects of carinata as a feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel. Those aspects include yield of carinata, cost of SAF, carbon emissions of SAF, and whether an agroforestry project including carinata is economically and environmentally feasible. A few more supply chain studies of SAF from carinata are currently under review.
I used advanced mathematical programming to develop optimization models that determines optimal harvest scheduling on a regional level and satisfies demand in the traditional timber mills and bioenergy demand in the power plant. This model maximizes landowners’ revenue and minimizes costs throughout the supply-chain of forest products. It also answers how stand carbon will change in the presence and/or absence of additional biomass demand in the coal-firing power plants to replace coal with energy-rich torrefied biomass. Results from this study was published in the Journal of Environmental Management. I plan to expand this for the entire US South, and eventually to the contiguous United States. I also developed models using a bioenergy production system with a special focus on land use change.
My work on Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for pollutants and causes of global warming helped understand for which pollutants the core idea of EKC succeeds and for which pollutant it fails. This is helping and will continue to help environmental economists to take future EKC estimation projects. These articles on EKC were published in Energy Policy, The Environmentalist, and iForest. My works were widely cited by researchers around the world and got several regional and national recognitions including the best presentation award in the Society of American Foresters National Convention 2020.
Proposed research at Berkeley: Moving forward, I will continue my investigation into the energy sustainability, economics, and management of natural resources. There are many renewable energy options that still requires a solid understanding in terms of life cycle assessment and technoeconomic feasibility. Recently announced renewable fuel credits from the US government suggests that renewable fuels will play a vital role in the energy sector. My expertise in this subject matter can be a great addition to the department. Under the umbrella of my research program, I will analyze different energy options (electricity, liquid fuel, solid fuel) under different conversion methods (e.g. pyrolysis, liquefaction, gasification) using different renewable feedstocks (e.g. waste, agricultural crops and residue, forest biomass). I also intend to dig deep in the economics of electrification for the transportation sector. I already published extensively on the fuel cycle. I believe, I can combine it with the vehicle cycle research and make a comprehensive research program around it.
Additionally, I will build advanced mathematical models for supply chain analysis, land use change, or bioenergy sustainability over longer planning horizon. These models estimates both near-term and long-term impacts of renewable fuels on the economy and the environment. My proposed research can be used for market analysis of the forest industry, feasibility analysis of any natural resource policy, risk analysis on multiple factors such as yield or price. These proposed studies can also be used to estimate impacts of other disturbances such as disease, wildfire, and climate change. Results from such research projects can help better understand the climate and natural resource policy issues and suggest better policy prescriptions. These models can also optimize collection and distribution of forest products, sustain maximum use of minimum resources, maximize bioenergy resources, and avoid the food vs fuel debate.
I am fully equipped to conduct and supervise scientific studies related to climate change, natural resource sustainability, and renewable energy. I would like to expand my research area into these topics as a natural progression of my previous and current research area.
Philosophy: As a long-term goal, I will seek to learn as long as I can and help create a more knowledgeable next generation with my research. To express my enthusiasm for research and learning, I want to use one of T. H. Huxley’s quotes – “The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land”. I like to think that I have reclaimed some land through my research, however tiny it might be, from the ocean of unknown. I am excited to contribute as a faculty member in this field, through research and teaching.
3. Curriculum Vitae
CV_Masum, 08-11-20224. Teaching Experience
- Primary Instructor, Fall 2021
University of Georgia, USA
Course Number and Title – FANR 3300, Economics of Natural Resources (1 section, 20 students)
Description – Created course outline, prepared lecture materials, lectured in class, arranged guest lectures, advised teaching assistant, conducted labs, and graded assignments and exams. - Teaching Assistant, Fall 2020
University of Georgia, USA
Course Number and Title – FANR 8900, University Teaching in Forestry and Natural Resources (2 section, 20 students)
Description – Created course outline, prepared lecture materials, lectured in class, and evaluated assignments. - Teaching Assistant, Spring 2020
University of Georgia, USA
Course Number and Title – FANR 3300, Economics of Natural Resources; FANR 3400, Society and Natural Resources (1 section, 23 students)
Description – Lectured in class, conducted labs, prepared lecture materials, and graded assignments and exams. - Teaching Assistant, Spring 2019
University of Georgia, USA
Course Number and Title – FANR 4800/6800; Renewable Resource Policy (1 section, 48 students)
Description – Lectured in class, conducted labs, prepared lecture materials, and graded assignments. - Teaching Assistant, Spring 2018
University of Georgia, USA
Course Number and Title – FANR 3000; Field Orientation, Measurements, and Sampling (1 section, 35 students)
Description – Lectured in class, conducted labs, prepared lecture materials and quiz, and graded assignments. - Vocabulary Teaching (online course), 2013
Prepared an online course based on my vocabulary book VocaBuilder. I uploaded all video lectures on YouTube. This completely free online course had about 14000 registered students. - GRE and TOEFL Instructor, March 2011 – June 2012
NexTop-USA (Higher Study in USA), Chittagong, Bangladesh
Prepared lectures, quizzes, final model test and conducted lectures for all three (verbal, quantitative, and analytical) sections of GRE. - Science Communication (online)
I create short lectures on scientific topics and upload it on my YouTube channel for science communication. Topics include, but not limited to, recent discoveries, scientists’ biography, and debunking myths and misunderstood scientific contents. I also publish popular science articles and videos.
5. Support Letter from Instructors for Teaching Assistant Award
Nomination for teaching assistant award comes from the faculty members. Below is the nomination letter written by the primary instructors of courses I taught.
6. Teaching Award Certificate
For outstanding service and dedication as a teaching assistant…
7. CTL transcript for Teaching and Learning
Because of my interest in teaching, I completed 5-credit hours of workshops required for the following transcript provided by the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Georgia.
CTL Transcript8. Quiz Example
9. Field Lab Supervision Experience
I supervised the field lab for the course Field Orientation, Measurements, and Sampling (FANR 3000) in University of Georgia. Students learned about compass and pacing, simple random sampling, strip sampling, point sampling, using GPS, measuring tree height, tree diameter, tree age in Whitehall Forest. My responsibilities included showing how the sampling instruments work, how to collect field notes, how on-field-analysis are performed, and evaluate field data.
10. Grading Assignment Example
Here is an example of my grading for my class FANR 3000.
11. Teaching Evaluations
Below is my teaching evaluation record for three courses I taught at the University of Georgia.
12. Google Scholar Citation Report
For most recent citation report, please visit my Google Scholar profile