Vanessa Arriola
As a new semester begins at Pierce College, returning students may find themselves staring into the fresh faces of the newest additions to the Pierce faculty.
Professor Cari Meyer is one of the most recent members to join the chemistry department at Pierce.
Meyer received her Bachelor of Science in chemistry and her doctorate in organic chemistry from UCLA.
In an e-mail interview, Meyer stated that she was drawn to Pierce after teaching several impressive former Pierce students at UCLA.
“Early on in my graduate teaching career, I came to the conclusion that the Pierce chemistry department must be of high caliber in order to produce such high quality students,” said Meyer.
At UCLA, Meyer taught chemistry for five years as a graduate teaching assistant.
The majority of her formal teaching experience is with undergraduate students.
She has also been involved in workshops in which she and a few other Ph.D. students taught Los Angeles Unified School District high school teachers new, cutting-edge science experiments to incorporate into their curriculum.
Department Chair Izzy Goodman met Meyer during her application process and stated that Meyer is a good communicator and has a broad set of experiences in chemistry to draw from.
“Cari is very bright, personable and really enjoys teaching students,” said Goodman in an e-mail interview.
Meyer is currently teaching Chemistry 101 here at Pierce.
Her enjoyment of teaching comes from finding it a very challenging and therefore very thrilling task, coming up with creative ways to explain a concept that would teach toward all learning styles.
“As a teacher, I am always experimenting and always learning,” Meyer said.
She has been interested in science since childhood. As a little girl, Meyer would construct makeshift experiments.
Her strong interest in chemistry came when she was 15 years old and began taking the equivalent of our Chemistry 60 course at Los Angeles Mission College with Dr. Maria Fenyes.
“She inspired me and I was hooked ever since,” she stated.
Although her career became chemistry, Meyer loved being a student and therefore loved many other subjects.
Some of her favorites were math, philosophy and English.
As for her future goals, Meyer has seen how several students visit her colleagues in the chemistry department here at Pierce and tell them all about their life adventures.
“In five years, I hope that I can be fortunate enough to witness some of my own students reach their career goals as well,” said Meyer.