National Teaching Excellence Award for Leeds academic
Dr Dave Lewis receives the Biochemical Society’s 2022 Teaching Excellence Award.
The unconventional and innovative educational approaches used by University of Leeds Lecturer have seen him win another national teaching award.
Dr Dave Lewis, a Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology & Bioethics in the Faculty of Biological Sciences, is the recipient of the Biochemical Society’s 2022 Teaching Excellence Award.
The award recognises Dave’s outstanding contribution to Biochemistry and the broader Biosciences education globally and his commitment to supporting both students and colleagues.
Dave introduced the Capstone experience into our programmes. Students deliver interactive science workshops in schools, create professional education resources or write commercial reports as alternative to undertaking a traditional undergraduate final year research project.
In an increasingly global world, it is essential that our students are ethically and culturally aware. Dave is our Faculty’s ethics champion. His ethics debates engage our students with topic ethical issues, get them to think outside of the box, and consider perspectives and viewpoints other than their own.
At the onset of the Covid pandemic, with reduced access to facilities, Bioscience educators globally struggled with delivering education remotely. Dave rose to the challenge, delivering online workshops for colleagues from afar afield as Australia and the USA, proactively sharing his capstone ideas and resources.
Asked about how he feels about receiving this award, Dave responded:
I'm extremely honoured to receive this prestigious award. It recognises the sector-leading work we are doing within the Faculty to prepare our students for an increasingly challenging 21st Century workplace.
As the winner of the Teaching Excellence Award 2022, Dave will have the opportunity to deliver an award lecture at one of Biochemical Society conferences next year, and publish an article in one of the Society’s publications.
Dave receives his award alongside ten other eminent bioscientists, each recognised for their excellence in their field of the biosciences, ranging from bioenergetics and 3D whole organ microscopy to prokaryotic cells and cancer research.
Professor Colin Bingle, Professor of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Sheffield, and Chair of the Biochemical Society’s Awards Committee, says:
“We are living in extraordinary times and the COVID-19 pandemic has helped to shine a light on the value of high-quality research and collaboration in the life sciences. Amongst this year’s nominees, there were some excellent, outstanding scientists which made the judging process very difficult. Every year, I am impressed by the contribution of these innovators and it is inspiring to see our winners are all on an upward trajectory in their chosen field. My heartfelt congratulations to our 2022 winners!”
