MCB Lecturer Robin Ball has been selected as one of the recipients of the UC Berkeley 2022 Distinguished Teaching Award. The annual award recognizes instructors for sustained performance of excellence in teaching that incites intellectual curiosity in students, inspires departmental colleagues, and makes students aware of significant relationships between the academy and the world at large.
 

Dr. Ball’s teaching has had a broad impact on undergraduate instruction at UC Berkeley. She is a driving force in modernizing the curriculum, utilizing her active teaching methods by designing courses, updating student laboratory experiences, leading a pedagogy course for Graduate Student Instructors, and engaging students in discussions and debates on current topics while developing their critical thinking skills. Ball states that she loves to teach and “I approach my teaching as a science, which means reading the literature and trying to do better.”
 

Recipients receive a cash award from the campus, recognition by the Academic Senate, and are permanently indicated as Distinguished Teachers in the UC Berkeley Catalog. They serve on forums, panels, and committees involving teaching issues, and they are advocates for excellence in teaching at Berkeley. Ball joins MCB Professors Gary Firestone (1995), Jasper Rine (1997), Daniel Feldman (2015), and Marla Feller (2020) in receiving this honor.
 

Learn more about the Distinguished Teaching Award and upcoming ceremony to honor recipients on April 28th: https://teaching.berkeley.edu/programs/distinguished-teaching-award
 

Learn more about Robin Ball and the science of her teaching in this interview: https://neuroscience.berkeley.edu/teaching-science-and-the-science-of-teaching-phd-program-alum-robin-ball/