Kim Kiest, Biology, Math

B.A., Scripps College, M.S., San Jose State University

Kim never expected to be a teacher. She assumed she would remain a scientist and continue to work around the world studying various ecosystems. She never trained to be a teacher but thinks that is part of her strength. "You can either teach or you can’t. You cannot be told how to teach." One of the many reasons that Kim enjoys teaching at York is that the teachers there are what they teach. It is not the kind of place where the old saying “those who can do, those who can’t teach” holds true. At York, all of the faculty have done or are still doing what they now teach.

Kim has conducted scientific research from Antarctica to Alaska and in a lot of much warmer places in between. Most of this research has been published in scientific journals. Topics are diverse, varying from fish vomit in Antarctica to landslide sediment influences along the Big Sur coast. So, why IS she teaching? To support herself she took on a teaching position up in the San Juan Islands of Washington. Then she taught on Catalina Island and again at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. She decided that she enjoyed the experience and that she was pretty good at it. Right before coming to York she was teaching at Hartnell College where she still works in the summer teaching Anatomy classes to nursing majors.

Kim feels that world wide travel is also essential to the learning experience and has been on 6 of the 7 continents (hasn’t been to Asia yet) and has even led students to some interesting locations including the Galapagos Islands and the Panama Canal. Students have said this of Ms. Kiest: “it is refreshing to have a teacher who clearly enjoys what she does.”