The 2023 Teaching Excellence Award will be presented to Dr Barry Ryan. Barry is a SFHEA, a CSci Teach and a research active applied biochemist with a proven expertise in practitioner use of, and leadership in, evidenced-based pedagogies in modern higher education. His approach to teaching has always been transformative and is underpinned by his integration of pedagogical research to inform and shape his practice. This approach is embodied by his early adoption, and continued research-led development, of the student as co-creator paradigm. Barry was awarded the Irish National Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (2014), the Royal Society of Chemistry Higher Education Award (2019) and an Irish National Teaching and Learning Research Fellowship (2020) in recognition of his development and dissemination of this philosophy. Concurrently, his lab-based research aligns with his educational research, resulting in a multi-faceted research profile incorporating community, laboratory, and pedagogical research to support and nurture biochemists at all levels of higher education. 

He seamlessly weaves these research strands together, promoting a student centred, research informed approach to biochemistry education that is both original and innovative. Away from the lab and lecture hall, Barry has led curriculum reimagination in TU Dublin (CoCREATE) and is currently on secondment developing and implementing the TU Dublin Education Model.    

Barry said: “I am delighted to receive this prestigious award from the Biochemical Society. It is an honour to be selected for this award and to join the fantastic past awardees as a representative of excellence in biochemical teaching and learning. This award validates my student-centred approach and will inspire me to continue to innovate and share my practice.”

The 2020 Teaching Excellence Award was presented to Dr Jo Rushworth of De Montfort University, UK.  

Four years after commencing her first lectureship, Jo was one of the youngest ever recipients of a National Teaching Fellowship in 2018. With 100 nominations for the Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award, which she won in 2016. Jo has championed De Montfort University’s inclusive teaching and learning strategy, known as Universal Design for Learning. Her approach to teaching provides flexible ways for all students to learn and to demonstrate their knowledge, including songs, video podcasts and chocolate-based analogies for cellular respiration. Jo enjoys encouraging her students to be active learners, using team-based learning, flipped classroom and flipped feedback, voting using Mentimeter and animal noises, summary sheets and drop-in sessions. Jo is particularly interested in developing teaching and learning methods that work for large, diverse groups of students. Jo is a passionate advocate of co-creation and works with her students to create their learning, for instance by appointing a student module leader and a team of student biochemistry lecturers. Jo is a highly reflective lecturer who enjoys trying out new and innovative ideas and loves to inspire other lecturers to do the same. She devised feedback boxes which are now used across her faculty, to help lecturers make the most of everyday feedback from students. Jo applied her novel biochemistry teaching methods to co-create a new Post-Graduate Certificate in Higher Education, which has seen her teaching, assessment and feedback methods be adopted across and beyond her University. 

Jo said: “I feel so honoured and humbled to receive the Teaching Excellence Award. I have been a member of the Biochemical Society since I was an undergraduate student and I was always inspired when my lecturers were featured in The Biochemist. Everything I do is for my students and I am just so grateful for their tremendous support and inspiration.”

Jo presented her Award lecture on Thursday 13 May 2021 as part of the Biochemistry Focus webinar series. View the recording. 

The 2019 Teaching Excellence Award was presented to Luciane Vieira de Mello from the University of Liverpool, UK. Lu has published over 40 research articles in biochemistry and bioinformatics but in 2012 she decided to direct her career towards teaching and learning. Lu’s broad educational research interest focuses on student–staff partnership, internationalisation, and employability. Lu’s contribution has been to devise, test and disseminate a range of novel methods that enable such students to understand and use bioinformatics effectively. Students in science struggle to recognise and reflect on transferable skills gained during their undergraduate and life. Lu designed an online reflective log and a skills audit in a placement module to help students recognise and reflect on the transferable skills gained during their undergraduate degree. The positive impact on student experience has been evaluated, and some of the assessment procedures have since been adopted across the Faculty. 

Lu said “I am delighted and honoured to receive the Teaching Excellent Award. I believe it is important to recognise teaching innovations alongside research excellence and applaud the Biochemical Society’s initiative. I am grateful to my colleagues for their support; and to my students for engaging with my teaching innovations. As Paulo Freire said “what the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves”.

Luciane presented her award lecture at the HUBS Annual Meeting 2019 on 30 April – 1 May 2019 at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridge.  

The inaugural Teaching Excellence Award was awarded in 2018 to Dee Scadden from the University of Cambridge. Following a successful research career that made a significant contribution to understanding the role of ADARs and RNA editing in mammalian cells, Dee has recently focused on developing innovative online teaching tools that aim to support learning within various undergraduate courses in Biochemistry. Use of such resources will increase access, engagement and flexibility for students beyond the conventional classroom, thereby enhancing teaching and learning. They will also provide opportunities for academics to explore new teaching styles to enrich learning.

Of winning the Teaching Excellence Award, Dee said “I am absolutely delighted to receive the Teaching Excellence Award, and am grateful to my colleagues for their support. The opportunity to engage closely with students and to develop teaching resources that support and encourage learning is a real privilege.”

Dee presented her Award lecture at the Society training event ‘Evolving molecular bioscience education’ on 12-13 April 2018 at the University of Chester, UK.