MBL September Course Director Eric Schwartz is Honored for Undergraduate Teaching

MBL Campus and Eel Pond in Autumn. Credit Emily Greenhalgh/MBL
MBL Campus and Eel Pond in Autumn. Credit Emily Greenhalgh/MBL
By Diana Kenney June 12, 2020
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Eric Schwartz, director of the MBL September Course “Observing Proteins in Action: How to Design and Build Your Own Instruments,” has received a Quantrell Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching from the University of Chicago. The Quantrell Awards are believed to be the oldest prize of their kind in the nation.

University of Chicago undergraduates Savy Johnson and Matthew Lawson in the inaugural "Observing Proteins in Action" September Course at MBL in 2017. Credit: Tom Kleindinst
University of Chicago undergraduates Savy Johnson and Matthew Lawson in the inaugural "Observing Proteins in Action" September Course at MBL in 2017. Credit: Tom Kleindinst

The MBL September Courses, launched in 2017, are intensive, three-week courses for UChicago undergraduates held on the MBL’s Woods Hole campus.

Eric Schwartz at a MBL-UChicago affiliation retreat at the University in 2014. Eric Schwartz at a MBL-UChicago affiliation retreat at the University in 2014. Credit: University of Chicago News Office

In Schwartz’s course, students learn how to build customized scientific instruments, including a voltage clamp and a simple fluorescence microscope. These instruments allow the students to study the electrical and optical properties of single molecules, such as membrane proteins.

“We want for them to understand how we discover new ideas,” says Schwartz, University of Chicago Professor of Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences and the College. Read more of the article here.