Beth De Stasio currently teaches courses in Genetics, Introductory Biology, First-Year Studies, Senior Experience, and a lab course for non-majors called Biotechnology and Society. She is working to make her courses welcoming and supportive of all students and is particularly interested in inclusive active pedagogy. She enjoys mentoring students in her lab where they investigate the role of genes that encode transcription factors, the on/off switches for other genes involved in the nervous system. She uses a small worm, C. elegans, as model for understanding how parts of the sensory nervous system, particularly cilia, are constructed. Dr. De Stasio is deeply involved in advising students as they explore and plan for careers in health care, specializing in advising students planning pathways toward medicine or genetic counseling in particular, and she is an advisor for the Health and Society minor at Lawrence as well. Outside of Lawrence, Dr. De Stasio is an associate editor of Genetics, one of two journals of the Genetic Society of America, and she has been involved in the AP Biology program as well. In her spare time, she enjoys tending to her gardens, playing board games, and doing Zumba classes.
