Tamara Western

Tamara Western joined the Biology Department at McGill University as a faculty member in September 2003 after completing her PhD at the University of British Columbia and postdoctoral fellowships at Rutgers University and the University of British Columbia. Her field of research is the molecular genetics of cell wall production during plant development, as well as the biomechanics of plant actuation (movement). She was Associate Dean (Academic) of the McGill Faculty of Science from September 2014 through August 2018, and served as Associate Dean (Education) for the Faculty of Science September 2018-May 2019.

Tamara has enjoyed teaching and working with students since graduate school where she was involved both in mentoring Honours BSc students in the laboratory and in pedagogy projects with the introductory genetics professor at the University of British Columbia. Since then she has taught a range of courses in Biology, from non-major to core introductory and upper level courses. She is proud of having been awarded a joint teaching award from the Biology undergraduate and graduate societies, and has been nominated for both the Leo Yaffe award (Science) and Principal’s Prize (McGill) for excellence in teaching. Further, she was an active participant in McGill’s Inquiry Network, a faculty group that investigated and promoted techniques for bringing research into undergraduate classrooms. As a research mentor, she has supervised or co-supervised 12 graduate students and 3 postdoctoral fellows, as well as over 60 undergraduate students. More recently has been creating opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to work on course development at McGill.
Source: https://www.mcgill.ca/biology/tamara-western