SPENCER BENSON, PhD Director, Center for Teaching Excellence Associate Professor, Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics Phone 301-314-1288 FAX 301-314-0385 Email:sbenson@umd.edu

Spencer Benson is the Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence and is an associate professor in the department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics. He received his B.S. degree in Zoology from the University of Vermont and his Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Chicago. He has published numerous articles on science education, pedagogy, faculty development, and assessment. Dr Benson has served as departmental director of undergraduate studies and director of the departmental honors program. He is faculty consultant for several K-16 education initiatives in Maryland including a new on-line Master Program in the Life Sciences for high school biology teachers and a large NSF-funded Maryland VIP-K16 Science Education Reform grant to the University System of Maryland. He has served as a discipline consultant for Project 2061, and project QUE, Quality Undergraduate Education (QUE) a National Association of System Heads (NASH) initiative. He has organized numerous local, nationals and international meetings on science education and teaching. He is past chair of the Undergraduate Education Committee of the Board of Education of the American Society of Microbiology (ASM), past chair of ASM's Div-W (Teaching) and a member of the steering committee for the Coalition for Education in the Life Science (CELS). He is a former University of Maryland CTE-Lilly Teaching Fellow and has won numerous teaching Awards. In 2001, he was selected as a Carnegie Fellow in the Carnegie Academy for the Advancement of Scholarship in Teaching and Learning (CASTL). In 2003 he was named AAC&U visiting SENCER scientist (2003-2004). He is the 2002 CASE-Carnegie Maryland Professor of the Year and the recipient of a 2003 University of Maryland System Regents Teaching Award. In 2000-2001 he spent 9 months in Taiwan as a visiting professor at Academia Sinica. His discipline research involves looking at anti-microbial activities in traditional Chinese herbal medicines.