Mouchumi Bhattacharyya
PhD, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 1999
M.Phil, Delhi University, 1992
MS, Delhi University, 1990
BS, Cotton College, 1988
I will be a teacher as long as I am excited about teaching. I think a teacher's enthusiasm can do wonders in terms of students' learning. Even though I have been teaching here at Pacific for quite a few years, I am still as excited to go into the classroom today as I was when I started my career.
I like to keep my classes interactive and lively. As I tell my students, active learning (as opposed to passive learning) helps students understand concepts at a deeper level. Even in my lower division classes, I emphasize conceptual understanding. Just being able to "plug in a number into an equation" does not go very far. Students need to understand "why" they are doing "what" they are doing.
My area of expertise is Statistics and hence I mostly teach Statistics classes. Since Statistics has wide application, in all my classes I give my students a flavor of the applied aspect of the subject. In classes such as Math 131, I incorporate applied examples from the area actuarial sciences, while for classes such as Math 37 and Math 130, I incorporate numerous applied examples from other relevant fields.
I want students to know how powerful Statistics is and what Statistics is capable of doing. In applied classes such as Math 37 and Math 130, I have my students do group or individual projects at the end of the semester. I require them to come up with their own project idea which gives them a sense of what it feels like to be a researcher. Almost every student in these classes comments on this term project as being one of the most rewarding experiences in the class.
Even though my original research area was Biostatistics, in the last several years I have been mostly doing collaborative research with faculty from various schools at the University of the Pacific.
