Dr. Moses Lee, who is dean for the natural and applied sciences and a professor of chemistry at Hope College, has been invited to be a featured speaker during an international conference focused on improving the teaching of science in higher education.
Lee is one of only nine science educators - and the only one from an undergraduate college - being featured during the conference "Transforming Education: From Innovation to Implementation," taking place on Wednesday-Friday, Oct. 10-12, at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. He will be speaking as part of a panel of college and university leaders addressing "How to Lead and Facilitate Institutional Change."
The conference's goals include development of a working position paper on effective practices for transforming STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education.
The presenters represent a mix of government agencies, science organizations, and higher-education settings. The event's special guest is Dr. Carl E. Wieman, associate director of science with the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the opening address will be presented by science educator and consultant Dr. Robert B. Barr, author of "From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education." The other speakers in addition to Lee are from organizations and institutions including the National Science Foundation (NSF); The National Academies/the National Research Council; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia; the University of Minnesota; and Chattanooga State Community College.
Hope has received recognition in a variety of ways through the years for its success in teaching through collaborative faculty-student research, and for the high quality of the research itself. Undergraduate research has been demonstrated to be a best practice in promoting students' learning, self-confidence, retention and career preparation, all the while creating new knowledge that contributes to the betterment of humankind. The college has the largest summer research program in the sciences in the nation among liberal arts colleges - this past summer, close to 180 students worked on more than 68 projects with nearly 50 members of the natural and applied sciences faculty at Hope. The research program is supported by a significant level of external funding in the form of independent research and program-wide grants from federal and private foundations. The program grants include two NSF-S-STEM (scholarship for STEM) grants, and five NSF-REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) awards in biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics and physics. The awards are in addition to an HHMI biomedical science education award as well as a Beckman Scholar Program grant.
Lee has been a member of the Hope faculty and dean since 2005, and previously was the Rose J. Forgione Professor of Chemistry at FurmanUniversity since 1989. He actively pursues research involving undergraduate and high school student co-workers, and to date has mentored nearly 300 undergraduate students as well as 13 post-docs, five Ph.D. students and 32 Master of Science students in his laboratory. Together they have published more than 170 peer-reviewed research articles.
Recognition of his teaching and scholarship has included a Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (1994-99), a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Scholar-Fellow Award (2002-05) and the 2009 "American Chemical Society (ACS) Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution," which honors a chemistry faculty member whose research in an undergraduate setting has achieved wide recognition and contributed significantly to chemistry and to the professional development of undergraduate students. He has served on the boards of Research Corporation, ACS-Petroleum Research Fund, West Michigan Science Technology Initiative and The Murdock Trust, and also served one year as an expert consultant with the NSF. His research program has received continuous funding from federal agencies (such as the NSF and the National Institutes of Health), private foundations and business corporations.