Erik Nordquist

Erik Nordquist

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Alex MacKerell Group University of Maryland, Baltimore

Introduction to Evidence-based Teaching

less than 1 minute read

This online course (through the edX platform and CIRTL) introduced me to the kinds of challenges facing an ‘expert’ in a field who is trying to reach a collection of students with various skills, previous knowledge, and emotions. In fact, the growth-mindset and iterative, active learning priciples I hope to implement are the same I need to use to learn how to teach.

View my certificate
View my final project

Some key take-aways:

  • Elements of good course design include:
    • Has lots of elements of active learning!
    • Alignment between course objectives, activities and assessments
    • Inclusively accomodate the important ways people are different
    • Foster Growth-mindset:
      • opportunities to improve, fix things
      • focus on the process of learning
      • praise students for their effort, commitment, improvement
  • The final project was a fairly detailed lesson plan, which I wrote about polyprotic acid titrations.
    • Writing detailed lesson plans is difficult
    • I would need to teach this lesson many times to improve it
    • It may not be necessary to plan every lesson to this detail; some ideas can carry-over across the course

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Best of Biophysical Journal 2023!

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My paper on hydrophobic dewetting, published with Jianhan and Zhiguang, was selected as one of twenty articles in the Best of Biophysical Journal 2023! This is a big honor, and feels immensely gratifying! This was essentially my first attempt to guide the direction of a research project more directly, although Jianhan of course provided many mission-critical suggestions and corrections at every phase of the project. The honor came as a surprise since none of us knew about the honor until seeing the issue in print after the BPS Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. Check it out! Read more

PhD Dissertation Defense

1 minute read



I gave my final PhD dissertation defense on Monday, June 5th 2023. This was a very special day, and week, to reflect on the work I’ve done and the progress I’ve made as a scientist, and to share that progress with my family, friends, and the academic community here in Amherst. It’s been a wonderful and challenging expeirence. Read more

1st class done!

less than 1 minute read



My first class, a first-year seminar called “Order and Chaos, Reconciling atomic randomness and the human world” was a big success. Some of the final projects students designed, carried out and presented:

  • Gas permeation through a eggshell-like membrane (pictured below)
  • Irreversibility of an explosion simulation
  • Thermal equilibration and planet formation
  • Equilibration of plucked strings
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