Brian Couch, Ph.D., knows how important undergraduate research opportunities are for students.
"I participated in an undergraduate research experience at Regis University in Denver, Colo., that was very formative for me," said Dr. Couch, an associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
So when he was presented with the opportunity to be a campus coordinator representing UNL in the Nebraska INBRE program, Dr. Couch jumped at it.
"I am excited for what this program does for the students," he said. "Watching them present at the Nebraska Academy of Sciences meeting this past spring, seeing how poised, collected and organized they are, really inspired me."
The position also affords him the opportunity to stay exposed to bench research through the students and the projects they are involved in.
That’s because Dr. Couch isn’t your typical scientist.
His lab doesn’t consist of Bunsen burners, pipettes or fume hoods.
But he does have seven grants totaling $8 million from the National Science Foundation and he did graduate in 2011 from Yale University with a doctorate in molecular biophysics and biochemistry.
Dr. Couch’s research revolves around building biology content assessments that look at how students are learning and progressing within their majors.
"We look at the content programmatically across the department and what students should be learning, we identify which concepts the students do well in and those they don’t do, as well as how different demographic groups perform across the major," he said.
All of the information could then be used to guide future teaching methods.
"We are the first to do this at this scale as far as I know, so we are charting a new course that other disciplines could follow."
Dr. Couch said he has three post-docs and two graduate students working in his research lab and during the school year he has anywhere from three to five undergraduate students working on projects as well.
"We function like your traditional science lab, with lab meetings, journal clubs and attending seminars, but the topic we study is education," he said.
It was while he was a grad student pursuing a traditional doctoral degree that he fell in love with teaching.
"I got involved with the teaching center at Yale and while there learned about the field of education research and transitioned to the University of Colorado in Boulder in 2011 to pursue a post-doctoral degree in biology education research," he said.
In his new role, he hopes to continue to build community among the INBRE Scholars at UNL, as well as learn more about how to support the scholars when they are thinking about their post-graduation plans.
Three facts you may not know about Dr. Couch:
- I really like bowling;
- My lab has a tradition of eating sushi together; and
- I like to run in my free-time. There are a lot of good trails in Lincoln.