CPET Annual Seminar by Feynman Prize Winner Ellen Rothenberg
Making molecular biology come to life
Ellen Rothenberg, the Albert Billings Ruddock Professor of Biology, is the 2016 recipient of the Richard P. Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching. This prize honors "a professor who demonstrates, in the broadest sense, an unusual ability, creativity, and innovation in undergraduate and graduate classroom or laboratory teaching." At Caltech, Professor Rothenberg has taught and developed both upper and lower division courses on immunology, hematopoiesis, cell biology, and molecular biology. She has taken an active role in improving biology teaching by redeveloping two introductory courses, Cell Biology (Bi9) and Molecular Biology (Bi8). Her improvements have pushed students to a better understanding of the molecular world by emphasizing the connectivity between topics within the field of biology, showing it is not just a "memorization game" (as one of her nominating students put it), but in fact a logical system that can be deeply understood and explored. Professor Rothenberg has also skillfully introduced complex concepts and biological techniques that enabled her students to answer challenging biological questions using the tools and knowledge they had acquired during the course. Please join us for a special teaching seminar, "Making molecular biology come to life" in which Professor Rothenberg will speak about her experiences teaching molecular biology here at Caltech