Melissa Maffeo

In his inaugural address as Dean of the Faculty of Sciences at Lille University, Louis Pasteur called for intellectual collaboration and curiosity, famously stating that “Chance favors only the prepared mind.” This was a call to action for students, faculty, and industry leaders to share resources and ideas and to form (radical) collaborations between science and society. As an educator, it is my goal to keep Pasteur’s words immortal by guiding my students in their pursuits of preparing their minds for the serendipitous chances their futures will bring. My goal is that my teaching encourages habits of mind that foster deep learning, like openness, curiosity, and critical thought. I do this through interdisciplinary teaching that aligns with a liberal arts curriculum. Allowing students to make connections between diverse academic topics helps them to see that we are all connected, and that the classroom truly can be a community of learning and inquiry. The nature of both psychology and neuroscience is inherently interdisciplinary. This supports the ideals of a liberal art curriculum and helps lay the foundation that supports my approach to teaching.