Dr. Christina Swan
Co-Founder, Sciences, Admissions
Christina is a co-founder of Waterloo School and teaches science. Before Waterloo, Christina taught molecular biology, biology, and chemistry at Regents School of Austin for ten years, where she also served as a faculty dean for the Math and Science department for seven of those years and started and directed the Science Club for grammar school students. Prior to that she helped start Providence Hall, a Christian school in Santa Barbara. She holds a Ph.D. in molecular pathology from the University of California, San Diego and worked as a post-doctorate fellow on HIV research at the prestigious Scripps Research Institute in California. Christina graduated with a bachelor’s of science honors degree in Biology from Westmont College. She and her family are members of The Vine church in Austin. Christina and her husband Dennis, who is also a scientist, have a Waterloo 10th grade daughter, Jasmine, and a fourth-grade son, Jonathan.
Education
- Ph.D. Molecular Pathology, UC San Diego (2006)
- B.S. Molecular Biology, Westmont College (1998)
- B.S. Honors Biology, Westmont College (1998)
Experience
- Science Teacher and Dean of Faculty, Math and Science, Regents School of Austin (2008-2018)
- Science Teacher, Providence School (2007-2008)
- Postdoctoral Fellow, UC San Diego (2006-2007)
Posts by Dr. Christina Swan
Have you ever been on a class trip? Where did you go? What did you do? Plenty of schools embark on class trips to unique cultural destinations to explore and expand young minds – some turn them into mission trips building local relationships and engaging in acts of service. At Waterloo, we’ve taken many of…
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Education at Waterloo School is inspired by several different learning models. One of those is well known by some and a bit of a mystery to others: Project-Based Learning (known by those familiar with it as ‘PBL.’) Just what is project-based learning? How does it work? And what does it look like in practice? What…
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Your senior year is a great time to be in high school! Will you coast through the finish line, or will you make the most of the time you have left? Dr. Christina Swan (admissions, sciences) and Craig Doerksen (director, humanities) recently had a chat about how Waterloo empowers seniors to get a head start…
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Academic rigor in high school is often touted as a selling point for families and an indicator of future success for students. But what does a rigorous curriculum really mean? Is an “academically rigorous” curriculum really the best way to help students succeed? To help unpack this idea, we captured a conversation between Dr. Christina…
Read MoreNote: see below for opportunities to learn more about Waterloo It is final exam week in my home: the week before Christmas break when every student is preparing to cram a semester’s worth of material into their heads long enough to reproduce it on a two-hour test, and repeat again the next day. Why do…
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