Anneke Sanders, Ph.D.

My name is Anneke Sanders, I was a postdoc from 2015 to 2020 at Vanderbilt. I worked in the Kaverina lab in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology in the School of Medicine, where I studied the mechanisms that drive and regulate non-centrosomal microtubule nucleation and dynamics. As a postdoc I was heavily involved in mentoring undergraduate students in the lab, which is where I first became interested in teaching. Through the BRET office’s ASPIRE program I learned more about teaching-focused faculty careers, and through my PI I was able to do some guest-lecturing to get some classroom practice.

Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic, my visa status, and a two-body problem made the job search difficult. I was unable to secure a faculty position at a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI) or small liberal arts college (SLAC), like I had hoped. Luckily, I did secure a postdoc position with Bryan Phillips in the Department of Biology at the University of Iowa, starting in January 2021. In my early discussions with Bryan, I mentioned that my ultimate goal was to become an educator at a university or college. He remembered that the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology was looking for an instructor to cover a lab course in the Spring semester and put me in touch with the department chair. I ended up teaching that lab course, and in August 2021 started as a full-time instructor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, where I have been ever since. I am now an Associate Professor of Instruction, which means the majority of my time is spent teaching, but I also do some service and am starting up some educational research projects. One of my favourite things is that I participate in a wide variety of courses: among others, I teach a large lecture course for non-major students, I still teach the lab course that started it all, and I work with our second-year graduate students in a writing course. Because of this, I get to know most students majoring in biochemistry, I get to know the grad students in the writing class and as TAs in my other courses, and I am connected to our research faculty.

If anyone is interested in a teaching career in higher education, or is looking at moving to a college town in the Midwest, I am happy to connect!