Student Comments from Course Evaluations
"Christian Hayes has been one of the best teachers I have ever had. He really cares about whether we are learning, which has been a really nice change for me. Christian did an excellent job of creating and teaching this class."
- Unsolved Mysteries, Summer 2017
"This course exceeded my expectations. Chris is an amazing teacher and I learned a lot. He is very engaging and makes the material understandable even though I am a humanities major. I have no criticisms of him at all. I really enjoyed the course."
- Unsolved Mysteries, Summer 2017
"Awesome class! When other classes say they are "science for non-science majors," they don't really mean it and they surprise you with hard math, etc. But this class really did present difficult material in a fun, engaging way that let us discuss things and will have me wondering about our universe for a long time going forward!"
- Unsolved Mysteries, Summer 2017
Teaching Experience
Undergraduate Research Mentor
- Yara Yousef, University of Virginia (2017 - 2018)
Course Instructor
- ASTR 1270: Unsolved Mysteries in the Universe, University of Virginia (Summer 2017)
Head Teaching Assistant
- University of Virginia Astronomy Department (2016 - 2017)
Teaching Assistant
- University of Virginia (2015 - 2017)
- ASTR 1220 (Non-major, Stars and Galaxies)
- ASTR 1230 (Non-major, Astronomical Observation)
- ASTR 1270 (Non-major, Unsolved Mysteries)
- ASTR 1559 (Non-major, Black Holes)
- Constellation Quiz Night Lab TA
Teaching Workshop Facilitator
- Center for Teaching Excellence: Teaching As a Graduate Student (TAGS) Workshop, Session Facilitator, University of Virginia (2017, 2018)
Alien Description Word Cloud
Unsolved Mysteries, Summer 2017
In my Summer 2017 Unsolved Mysteries class I had students draw what they though an alien would look like, trade their drawing with a partner, and describe their partners alien. This word cloud was made from all of the descriptions and illustrates the anthropogenic bias we typically have when considering alien life.