About Susan Wessler
Susan Wessler is the Neil and Rochelle Campbell Chair for Innovation in Science Education at the University of California Riverside. In 2011 she was elected home secretary of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the first women to hold this position in its 150-year history. She is a molecular geneticist known for her contributions to the field of transposon biology. A native of New York City, she received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Cornell University (1980) and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution of Washington (1980-1982). She began her career at the University of Georgia in 1983 where she remained until moving to UC Riverside in 2010. Wessler has contributed extensively to educational and diversity initiatives. As a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor (2006), she adapted her research program for the classroom by developing the Dynamic Genome (DG) Course where incoming freshman can experience the excitement of scientific discovery. The DG course is currently taken by over 600 students/year. As home secretary, she has spearheaded initiatives that have led to a 40% increase in the number of women elected to membership in the NAS. She is the recipient of several awards including the Stephen Hales Prize (2011) from the ASPB, the Excellence in Science Award from FASEB (2012) and the McClintock Prize for Plant Genetics and Genomics (2015). She is a member of the NAS (1998), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007), the American Philosophical Society (2013), and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (2017).
The University of California, Riverside (UCR) is one of the most diverse research universities in the country that also has a world-class faculty in the plant sciences. To improve student persistence in STEM while introducing them to the excitement of plant research,we are piloting the Dynamic Genome (DG) course - a hands-on bioinformatics/wet lab that is taught in the state-of-the-art Neil A. Campbell Science Learning Laboratory. First articulated in my HHMI Professor Program in 2006, the DG course was initially offered as a laboratory for upperclassmen at the University of Georgia that replicated my research lab where students learned to analyze transposable elements in plant genomes.Since my arrival in 2010, UCR has proven to be fertile ground for the rapid expansion of the DG course model to the current 24 sections with almost 600 first year students. To accommodate this expansion, the program has evolved to include UCR research faculty who take ownership of individual sections and bring the excitement of their research program, often involving plant models, to the classroom. With the tools and knowledge gained from the DG course , an interesting number of students are entering faculty laboratories as first or second year students, and/or participating in summer research experiences usually in the plant sciences.
Susan Wessler is the Neil and Rochelle Campbell Chair for Innovation in Science Education and distinguished Professor of Genetics at the University of California, Riverside. She believes the future of the life sciences in the United States is at great risk being one of the oldest and least diverse fields of study in the nationwide workforce. While many American students are receiving PhDs, there has not been an increase in the basic plant sciences in over forty years. Wessler discussed the NSF Plant Genome Program funding had been cut in half this year, contributing to the worsening problem. Additionally, the increase in funding for private universities and the decrease in funding for public universities has led to a divide in students where only the wealthiest students are receiving the proper training for a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Having spent the last 35 years of her career at public universities, she believes in order for the United States to succeed as a nation it must provide an easier path to acquire a quality education to all students in public and private universities.
Wessler came to the University of California, Riverside in 2010 as a result of the research university holding an outstanding faculty in the plant sciences. While teaching at UC Riverside, she noticed the student population was among the most diverse and many were first generation college students. She also noticed students seemed uninterested in the introductory STEM courses due to the substantially large class sizes. To combat and help students hold their interest in the plant sciences, Susan Wessler introduced, Bio 20, at UC Riverside an alternative to the traditional introductory biology course. This course teaches students to develop well-designed experiments through authentic research, resulting in authentic projects from their research labs and developing the passion of practicing scientists. This approach will bridge the connection of the professional lab and the college classroom through the public research university education.
Being the wife of the President of the Keck Graduate Institute of the Claremont Colleges, the focus of education is on the professional science master’s and science-technology advanced degrees. She understands the demand for business in agriculture technology in currently increasing in student interest. As the Claremont Colleges is a private college, they are constantly receiving an increase in funding for their labs and research. Susan’s students from UC Riverside, however, are sent to intern at the USDA Beltsville summer internship. In result of her work, the Bio 20 course and the DG Program are current experiments that are being assessed to help be persistent in the STEM majors, add involvement in undergraduate research, graduation time, the value of each intervention and and the analysis impact be gener and demographics. Susan Wessler would like to alter the conversation by recognizing a long time generosity of education donors who have helped our students receive a quality education without worrying about the funding beforehand.
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