Cottrell Scholar Awards
News
2009 Cottrell Scholar Awards
July 17th, 2009
Research Corporation for Science Advancement, America's first foundation dedicated solely to science, announced today the 10 recipients of its 2009 Cottrell Scholar Awards. These Awards, which provide a grant of $100,000 to each recipient, represent the foundation's largest individual grant-making for science/teaching.
The Awards are based on the foundation's conviction that the best science teachers are those who are actively engaged in the pursuit of knowledge and who are eager to pass their research skills and knowledge on to others. The Award winners are chosen both for the quality of their scientific research and their dedication to teaching. Originality, feasibility, and the prospect for significant fundamental advances to science are the main criteria for judging the candidates' research, while contributions to education, especially at the undergraduate level, aspirations for teaching, and the candidates' proposed strategies to achieve educational objectives, are factors in assessing their teaching plans.
The Awards are named for science visionary Frederick Gardner Cottrell, whose generosity made Research Corporation possible and whose invention of the electrostatic precipitator was an early environmental innovation that reduced pollution from smokestacks.
The winners of the 2009 Cottrell Scholar Awards are:
Scott Alan Snyder - Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Columbia University, New York, NY
Dr. Snyder has created a new high-school research program that enables at least two students to work at Columbia each summer; his own laboratory also provides training in modern organic chemistry to high-school students and their teachers. He is currently designing an inquiry-based program for the second semester of introductory organic chemistry that requires students to synthesize a natural product.
Lane Allen Baker - Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Dr. Baker is targeting undergraduates at Indiana University and high-school students who own iPods and similar devices by creating and refining podcasts - digitally recorded, downloadable discussions - about chemistry in modular units. He is also creating a program of Internet-based video conferences in collaboration with an Alabama high-school teacher to reach ethnically diverse groups.
Penny J. Beuning - Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Northeastern University, Boston, MA
Dr. Beuning is developing a new course at Northeastern University, "Principles of Chemical Biology," that will focus on using chemical and biophysical tools to address biological questions. In addition to discussing experimental methods to address a problem or to interpret experimental results, students will be expected to do research incorporating discovery-based projects derived from ongoing faculty research.
Duncan Ross Lorimer - Assistant Professor of Physics
West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV
Dr. Lorimer plans to recruit and retain students of physics at West Virginia University by improving astronomy opportunities for undergraduates and providing research experiences for high-school students via searches for transient radio sources. Among other projects, he is also creating a new introductory course, "Explosions in Space," that moves beyond the "survey" approach to investigate astronomical exotica.
Yadong Yin, Assistant Professor of Chemistry
University of California-Riverside, Riverside, CA
Dr. Yin is focused on developing educational programs that stimulate and maintain students' curiosity about science and technology and encourage them to pursue scientific careers. Specifically, he is creating a new course in nanomaterials designed to give an interdisciplinary overview of the topic to undergraduates at the University of California-Riverside, and provide outreach programs to interest high-school students in research.
Michael David Gladders, Assistant Professor of Astronomy
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Dr. Gladders plans on using emerging technologies to bring new astronomical research to University of Chicago classrooms. He will incorporate data from an extensive star survey of deep space into advanced computer programs for teaching and visualization, essentially creating desktop planetaria. Based on these and other new tools, he will create new computerized astronomy labs for students.
Snezana Stanimirovic - Assistant Professor of Astronomy
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
Dr. Stanimirovic is working to assemble three small radio telescopes (SRTs) and using them to create an Astronomical Observation Laboratory (AOL), all at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her goal is to infuse introductory courses with hands-on learning at the AOL, a "radio observatory," which will also allow upper-level project-based courses to focus on problem-solving and collaborative learning.
Robert McDermott - Assistant Professor of Physics
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
Dr. McDermott's effort has two primary thrusts: 1) Upgrading and expanding the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Physics Advanced Laboratory course and developing a novel undergraduate course on experimental quantum information; 2) Working with local high-school teachers to develop teaching materials demonstrating key concepts in satellite communications.
Maura Ann McLaughlin, Assistant Professor of Physics
West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV
Dr. McLaughlin's teaching plan is aimed at increasing the numbers and retention of physics students, particularly underrepresented rural youths and women, at West Virginia University. She has outlined a series of confidence-building exercises and will host a yearly fall recruitment weekend for nearly a dozen high-school seniors. In addition she is working to provide physics students and those enrolled in astronomy courses with a collaborative, inquiry-based, classroom and laboratory atmosphere.
Rory Waterman, Assistant Professor of Chemistry
University of Vermont, Burlington, VT
Because he believes research provides the best way for students to understand science, Dr. Waterman's teaching plan involves establishing a computerized Vermont-wide network of research opportunities - state and national - for high-school and University of Vermont undergraduate students. He is also teaching a course that gives first-year students the opportunity to conduct two half-semester research projects with two different faculty members.