Stiver

Dr. Mikaela Stiver is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in the Department of Cellular & Physiological Sciences in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. She obtained her B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the University of Guelph and her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. She is also a Visiting Professor at the Università di Pavia where she leads the musculoskeletal anatomy and neuroanatomy components of the Harvey Medical Course: Italy’s first English-language medical program.

Dr. Stiver has extensive experience teaching neuroanatomy, gross anatomy, and embryology to students in a wide variety of undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs. Her teaching philosophy centres around the importance of approaching learning as a lifelong pursuit, embracing mistakes or ‘failures’, and rekindling the joy of discovery through playful and gamified approaches.

Dr. Stiver’s research interests include developing and implementing innovative teaching approaches with an emphasis on gamified learning, open educational resources, and drawing to learn. Some of her recent and on-going endeavours include creating a series of Pokémon-inspired cranial nerve cards, co-designing educational games (e.g., Foramina!), illustrating the first Histology Colouring Book, and leading an international team of neuroanatomists in establishing the Global Neuroanatomy Network — an online community of practice and collaborative resource sharing platform for educators for which she is now a co-Editor-in-Chief.