The Department of Life Sciences

• PhD. Plant Sciences The University of the West Indies. St. Augustine Campus June 2012 
• BSc. GENERAL (HONORS, BIOCHEMISTRY & BOTANY) The University of the West Indies. St. Augustine Campus June 1998

•  Lectured, examined, conducted and augmented laboratory exercises, graded, created rubrics and online material for all of or parts of the following courses: Biochemistry I, Biochemistry II, Cell & Developmental Biology, Biodiversity & Conservation, Metabolism, and Plant Development.

• Lectured, examined, conducted laboratory exercises and graded components in Molecular Biology, Cell and Developmental Biology, Biochemistry, Laboratory Skills in Biotechnology, Plant Biotechnology, Crop Improvement, Plant Development, Evolutionary Biology, Parasite Biology and Biodiversity and Conservation.
• Developed marking rubrics for above courses.
• Developed practical laboratory exercises for Laboratory Skills in Biotechnology, Conservation Biology and Evolution and Biosystematics and Further Metabolism & Gene Expression.
• Managed and supervised demonstrators who assisted students in the practical laboratory exercises.
• Research Supervisor/Co-Supervisor
• Managed and supervised MSc and undergraduate student research projects
• Examined and Graded MSc final presentations and theses
• Responsible for the development and implementation of various personal, undergraduate and post graduate scientific proposals and research projects.

Biochemistry Teaching Assistant. UWI Aug 2005 – July 2012
Department of Life Science. UWI. Trinidad & Tobago.

• Managed all undergraduate biochemistry laboratory sessions, graded lab reports, gave tutorials, managed laboratory marks, tended to student matters and editing of student laboratory manuals.
• Managed lab demonstrators and ensured they were adequately briefed on lab sessions, and provided with marking schemes materials to report marks.
• Developed and revised rubrics for marking biochemistry lab reports.
• Organized and assisted with grading final year Clinical Biochemistry written research projects and Presentations.
• Assisted in marking final examinations.

CO-AUTHOR AND EXAMINER FOR CXC CAPE BIOLOGY 2018 EXAMINATION PAPER April 2016 – July 2018
Caribbean Examination Council. Barbados
Responsibilities

• Compose questions and develop the marking rubrics for the CAPE 2018 January and June Biology Examinations

RELEVANT SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS

• Austin N, Oatham M, Cockburn B and Umaharan P. Comparison of DNA Isolation Protocols to Extract High Quality Genomic DNA from Woody Neotropical Trees. Tropical Agriculture. Vol 96. 2019. (in Press)
• Hosein FN, Austin N, Maharaj S, et al. Utility of DNA barcoding to identify rare endemic vascular plant species in Trinidad. Ecol Evol. 2017;7:7311–7333. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.3220
• Michelle Cazabon-Mannette, Darren Browne, Nigel Austin, Adrian Hailey, Julia Horrocks. Genetic structure of the hawksbill turtle rookery and foraging aggregation in Tobago, West Indies. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. Volume 485, December 2016
• Nigel Austin, Michael Oatham and Pathmanathan Umaharan Genetic Diversity and Structure of the Neotropical Monodominant Species Mora excelsa (Benth.) in Five Naturally Fragmented Populations. 2010. pg72. https://goo.gl/VgspqE