Monia Haselhorst, Ph. D.
Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences; Director of the Teaching & Learning Center
Phone: 307-754-6140
Email: Monia.Haselhorst@nwc.edu
Office: Science & Math, SM253
Teaching Responsibilities
- BIOL 1010 General Biology I (Fall & Spring)
- BIOL 2023 The Biology of Plants and Fungi (Fall)
- GEOG/BIOL 2310 Introduction to GIS (Fall)
- BOT 2100 Forest Management (Spring)
Teaching & Learning
My goal is to engage my students in learning and for it to be a positive component of their undergraduate experience - not only as a stepping stone to a degree, but also to enrich their every day life. To accomplish this goal, my courses are highly interactive and based on the students participation in discussions and team activities that require them to think about real-world problems in a collaborative setting. Being a teacher is very rewarding to me and I genuinely enjoy working with students, to see them develop knowledge and grow as people. When students take my courses I want them to feel comfortable asking questions, be inspired and connected to the content, and develop ownership over their personal learning. When students enjoy a subject, they gain the desire to learn as well as to apply their new-found knowledge. Moreover, when active and engaged learning is incorporated into classes, it tends to close achievement gaps for underrepresented minority students, women, and first-generation students.
Research interests
My research experience has strengthened my understanding of the natural world and how science is done, which I bring into my interactions with my students. My broad research interests revolve around biogeographical patterns of genetic and ecological variation in plants at different scales (molecular to ecosystem; local to global). In my dissertation projects, I used an interdisciplinary approach integrating genomics, ecology, GIS, and statistical models to investigate species of spruce across their western North American range. My main goal was to characterize factors that contribute to the maintenance and distribution of divergent species in this genus.
My curiosity about the natural world has lead me to investigate a spectrum of species living in various habitats, for example devil's-bit scabious (Succisa pratensis), sunflowers (Helianthus annuus and H. petiolaris), cottonwoods (Populus deltoides and P. angustifoila), spruce (Picea spp.), and field mustard (Brassica rapa). Moreover during my time as a doctorate student at the University of Wyoming, I learned about many different ecological systems, from fish in lakes and streams, Penstemon living on sand dunes, alpine butterflies and their hosts, native vs. invasive species interactions, plant-soil microbiome relationships, to forest disturbance management.
