UD's Hal White (right) receives the Educator of the Year award from Ben Hsu, a member of the Delaware BioScience Association.

Educator of the Year

UD's White honored by Delaware BioScience Association

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2:22 p.m., May 15, 2015--Hal White, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Delaware, has been honored as Educator of the Year in higher education by the Delaware BioScience Association. 

The award was presented to White at the association’s annual gala, held April 22 in Wilmington, Delaware. 

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The Educator of the Year Award recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions in the advancement of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in Delaware. 

White, a UD faculty member since 1971, earned his bachelor’s degree at Penn State University and his doctorate in biochemistry at Brandeis and also was a National Science Foundation postdoctoral chemistry fellow at Harvard. 

His research interests have included structure, function and evolution of vitamin-binding proteins, particularly riboflavin-binding protein from chicken eggs. Additionally, he has strong interests in intermediary metabolism and biochemical evolution.

White knew he was interested in science at a young age. He developed an early interest in entomology and currently is known as an expert on dragonflies of the northeast coast, as author of the book Natural History of Delmarva Dragonflies and Damselflies.

At UD, White is director of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Undergraduate Science Education Program.

He has won many other awards in his career, including the College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award and its Outstanding Service Award. In 2011 he received the Howard Barrows Award for exceptional undergraduate teaching from Ontario’s McMaster University, and in 2013 he was named Delaware Professor of the Year by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Last year, he received the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s Award for Exemplary Contributions to Education. 

UD graduate student Amy Schaefer described White’s teaching and research style: “He’s very enthusiastic about science, and he’s asking questions that I would have never thought to ask,” she said, calling him very deserving of the award.

John Jungck, professor and director of UD’s DuPont Interdisciplinary Science Learning Laboratories, said White has a supportive influence on students.

“Hal’s kindness of working with individuals is so superb that he has such a gentle touch and he reaches out and is so supportive,” Jungck said. “Hal works closely with individuals in terms of guiding and counseling them.” 

White teaches his classes using problem-based learning (PBL), an approach that spends less time lecturing and more on having students solve problems. 

“The aspect that I really like is that it’s interdisciplinary,” White said of PBL. “A student doesn’t just see something that’s out of a textbook but it’s really sort of connected to their lives, the whole world, and … it makes it relevant. Too often, I think, science is taught in a way that is pretty dry and unconnected and something that only happens in a laboratory and doesn’t really relate to the world around you.”

About the Delaware BioScience Association

The Delaware BioScience Association is dedicated to encouraging life science industry growth, as well as advancements in research, and giving support to education initiatives in Delaware and the surrounding area.

The organization launched in 2006, bringing together health and science enterprises with a shared goal of expanding Delaware’s bioscience economy.

Article by Ashley Heller

Photo courtesy of Adam Gierke

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