The reason I chose to follow a career of a college professor is that I can combine my love to discover new things – research – and my passion to share my knowledge with others – teaching.

I started teaching in 1995 at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. I taught a recitation section of a calculus based service course in statistics. After coming to Michigan State University in 1996 I was a graduate teaching assistant and gained teaching experience as an instructor of several introductory statistics courses. After becoming a faculty member at Colorado State University in 2000 I have been very fortunate to regularly teach one of the core graduate sequences – ST520/ST530. This has given me an opportunity to know and influence every single graduate student that comes to the Department of Statistics at Colorado State University. I consider this a big responsibility as many of the students are still undecided whether to pursue a Ph.D. or M.S. degree. I am very grateful for the departmental vote of confidence being assigned this course sequence year after year.

I believe that when teaching a difficult technical subject as statistics, it is important not only to convey information in an understandable manner but also show true enthusiasm for the subject. Only someone truly interested and consistently passionate about a subject can expect students to get excited as well. Knowing this, I try to communicate not only knowledge but also show my emotion toward statistics and probability during every lecture I teach.

I have consistently received strong teaching evaluations. Overall, 88% of those students that completed evaluations strongly agreed or agreed with the statement “Overall, I would rate this teacher as good” and 95% strongly agreed or agreed with the statement “The teacher was enthusiastic about the course”. In addition to strong evaluations, I have also received encouraging comments regarding my teaching from various departmental review reports.

One of the parts that make graduate education special is the one-on-one interaction between a student and his/her dissertation advisor. As opposed to classroom teaching advising allows the advisor to personally mentor a student into a new researcher. For that reason I see advising as an important part of my role as a faculty member. My personally philosophy is to treat my advisees as colleagues. Therefore I really treasure the opportunity to shape the way they think about problems always learning something new myself in the process. In addition to mathematical and statistical skills I work with my students on written and oral communication skills.

As an academic faculty member, I will continue to be an effective teacher and advisor. I view teaching and advising as rewarding parts of an academic career and I will work continuously to improve myself as a teacher and advisor.