Roles at Yale

J. Nick Fisk is a recent graduate of the Interdepartmental Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics in the Townsend Lab. In addition to their work at the Poorvu Center, Fisk was part of the NIH Cancer Biology Training Program, was president of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate, served on the Provost’s Advisory Committee on Accessibility Resources, and was a graduate affiliate of Jonathan Edwards College.

PhD Research

Fisk’s research focused on using phylogenetic and evolutionary methods in cancer biology. In particular, they are interested in understanding the mechanisms of therapeutic resistance and metastasis. They also work on problems of generalized phylogenetic theory and principled experimental design.

Teaching Philosophy

Experiential learning is essential to Fisk’s teaching philosophy, believing that science students can learn through well-mentored research experience. Further, evidence-based teaching methods are central to their teaching ideals, having been a coauthor on two Discipline Based Education Research (DBER) papers concerning student misconceptions in the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology and teaching tools to identify and remedy them. More philosophically, Fisk is critical of disiplines as an effectual model of managing and evaluating evidence, instead favoring knowledge equity principes.

Teaching Experience

Fisk has served as an adjunct professor and graduate teaching fellow for a myriad of classes at Rochester Institute of Technology and Yale University alike. Their experience ranges from lab instructor to instructor of record. Fisk also taught as part of the Yale Young Global Scholars program in the Solving Global Challenges track.

Misc

When not doing research or teaching, Fisk was head coach for Yale’s NCWA Wrestling team and has published a variety of English and Spanish language poetry, as well as a somewhat silly fantasy novel. Fisk was also an active member of the Meaning in Evolution and Ecology working group at Yale. Fisk is now an assistant professor of computational biology and discipline-based education research at the University of Rhode Island.