Stacey Lowery Bretz to receive the 2022 James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (NESACS) will present the 2022 James Flack Norris Award to:
Stacey Lowery Bretz
University Distinguished Professor of Chemistry
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
Dr. Bretz is being recognized for her holistic approach to chemistry education, including the combination of excellence in teaching practice, efforts to promote Chemistry Education Research (CER) nationally, contributions to a wide variety of educational materials, and her role as an exceptional mentor to graduate students and postdocs.
Her excellence in teaching has been recognized by Miami University, where she has been honored with the E. Phillips Knox Award for Undergraduate Teaching (2009) and the Distinguished Teaching Award for Excellence in Graduate Instruction and Mentoring (2013). She has also received the prestigious Benjamin Harrison Medallion which recognizes extraordinary and sustained contributions to teaching, research and service at Miami University.
Her efforts to promote CER through the Gordon Conference on Chemistry Education Research and Practice and NSF-funded CER professional development conferences for CER graduate students and postdocs have had a broad impact on the teaching of chemistry here in the US. Her outstanding body of research aims to advance assessment strategies and develop tools for use in chemistry education, including tools to identify and understand student misconceptions related to multiple representations, metacognition and meaningful learning in the laboratory. This work has a wide-reaching impact not only at her own institution but also nationally and internationally. She was awarded the American Chemical Society Award for Achievement in Research on Teaching and Learning of Chemistry in 2020. In addition, her contributions as co-author on three chemistry textbooks published by W.W. Norton, along with her roles as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the ACS Examinations Institute (2009-2014), as Chair of the ACS Division of Chemical Education (2021), and as a current member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of Chemical Education, cement her dedication to service to the field of chemistry education.
The James Flack Norris Award is the first national award for outstanding achievement in the teaching of chemistry. Established in 1950 by NESACS to honor the memory of James Flack Norris, Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a teacher of great repute the award recognizes dedicated teachers of chemistry at any level whose efforts have had a wide-ranging effect on chemical education. As such it is highly fitting that a champion of chemistry education research who has taken a holistic approach to chemistry education and had such a wide-reaching impact on the way chemistry is taught will be the award recipient this year.
For further information about the James Flack Norris Award, contact Christine A. Caputo (caputo.unh@gmail.com)
Additional details will be forthcoming on the NESACS website, www.nesacs.org.
NESACS has nearly 7000 members and fosters the advancement of chemistry and chemical engineering, the promotion of research in chemical science and industry, the improvement of the qualifications of chemists and chemical engineers through high standards of educational and professional ethics, the increase and diffusion of chemical knowledge, and the promotion of scientific interests and inquiry. More information on NESACS initiatives can be found at our website, www.nesacs.org. For press inquiries about NESACS, contact Jack Driscoll and Jennifer Maclachlan, Public Relations at pidguy@aol.com and pidgirl@gmail.com, respectively.
