Hélène Cousin

Background

Originally from Paris, France, Dr. Cousin earned her B.S. in Physiology and Cell Biology in 1996, her Master’s degree in Developmental Biology in 1997 and her Ph.D. in Developmental Biology in 2000 from the Sorbonne University (University VI- Pierre and Marie Currie to be exact). Her Ph.D. dissertation focused on the function of proteins ADAM13 and PACSIN 2 during the migration of Neural Crest Cells in early development. These cells are critical for craniofacial development. She completed her first postdoc at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville focusing on gastrulation. Her second postdoc was at UMass and focused on craniofacial development. While she enjoys research, she also loves teaching (she comes from a line of public-school instructors four generations strong) and animals (her house is full of various critters), and agriculture (her family also includes small production farmers).

Scholarly Interests

While Dr. Cousin is still active in scientific bench work (her embryonic surgical skills are still sought after in the Xenopus community), her current interest is science communication.

Her current project is quite ambitious: to write a new series of anatomy, physiology and development textbooks that will, at first, be designed for students taking her classes. Ultimately, she would like to make these textbooks available more broadly to the learning community.

Dr. Cousin is currently writing her second “next-generation” textbook on her first animal-model “love", the South African frog Xenopus laevis, focusing on the frog’s anatomy (and a bit of physiology) and its development. While many books have been published on the subject, they are often either very narrow in topic (only one organ system), or too old, or too molecularly oriented. Her goal is to write these books with active learning and integrated science in mind. These new texts will include written chapters that would: 1- highlight briefly the development of each organ system and 2- describe the anatomy and physiology in the adult. The goal is that students taking her ANIMLSCI 220 class could skip the development part if they wish and students taking ANIMLSCI 487 could go back to that same textbook and read the development section. These books would come with a series of hand drawn scientific illustrations (Dr Cousin uses Procreate) that will have two versions: one annotated and one not. Readers would have the ability to use either the annotated version or the non-annotated one and follow along with a series of video recordings where the learner can annotate alongside the instructor while listening to selected case studies that highlight the importance of selected organ systems. 

Dr. Cousin plans to make a series of textbooks with individual chapters so that any learner with a high school-level anatomy knowledge (humans are great!) can bring their knowledge up a notch and discover the wonderful adaptations these domestic animal species have developed. Eventually, she would like to write a book for every species that is commonly used at the UMass farms, starting with poultry (of course).

This project could use the help of motivated undergraduate students interested in a bibliography-based independent study. Experience in videography, animations, or graphic arts would be preferred. One of the primary tasks would be to do a literature search to find the proper citations for every stated fact included in the book and check the science of said literature. Not a small task, but critical considering this new age of misinformation. The good news is that students can do most of this work at home.

If you are interested, please email Dr. Cousin.

You can find Dr. Cousin on BlueSky @hcousin.bsky.social