CONTACT: Teri Shors, (920) 424-7083
$75,000 NSF grant will help professor write virus
textbook
OSHKOSH – A University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh biology professor
has been awarded a $75,000 National Science Foundation grant to write
an innovative textbook to help college undergraduates better prepare
for the rapidly changing field of viruses and viral diseases.
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Teri Shors |
“This will fill a large void in virology education,” said
Teri Shors, an expert on poxviruses. “Most
virologists are preoccupied with research because there are new and
reemerging viruses every year. Undergraduate virology education has
had to take a back seat.”
The potential threats from bioterrorism and another influenza pandemic
have fueled a growing interest in virology.
Shors proposal was among the 15 percent of projects funded by the
NSF course, curriculum and laboratory improvement program. More than
740 proposals were submitted.
“The rapid changes occurring in science instruction today require
textbooks that reflect the emphasis on active learning and critical
thinking,” Shors said.
Joining Shors in the project is professor Jeffrey Pommerville of Glendale
Community College in Phoenix, a cell biology expert who has written
a microbiology textbook. He will evaluate Shors’ materials and
establish procedures for other experts to review and evaluate them.
In addition to writing the text, Shors also will do some of the drawings
for it. Besides the textbook itself, the “next generation undergraduate
virology textbook” will include an instructor’s toolkit
and other materials.
“This grant is so important because my book will not make the
money that a general textbook will make,” Shors said. “I’ll
have to do much of the legwork, without help from other experts who
would get royalties from a general textbook that sells millions of
copies.”
In 2000, Shors received an NSF grant to establish an automated DNA
sequencing facility at UW-Oshkosh, making UW-Oshkosh the only comprehensive
campus in the UW System with such a facility.
She also was one of three UW-Oshkosh microbiologists awarded nearly
$400,000 by the NSF in 2003 to establish a proteomics and functional
genomics research lab that makes the campus a Fox Valley center for
exploration of the next frontier of genomics research. |
