Katerina "Kaci" Thompson Receives 2024 Kirwan Undergraduate Education Award
Katerina "Kaci" Thompson will receive the University of Maryland's 2024 Kirwan Undergraduate Education Award in recognition of her exceptional contributions to the quality of undergraduate education at the university. She will receive the award at the Faculty & Staff Convocation on September 18, 2024, in the Memorial Chapel.
Thompson, an instructor and assistant dean for science education initiatives in the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS), has demonstrated exemplary commitment to improving student outcomes in STEM majors and enhancing science teaching and learning for more than 30 years.
A crown jewel of her work is the BioFIRE living and learning program, which debuted in 2015. As founding director, Thompson has helped provide research opportunities, mentoring and community activities to chemical and life sciences students who are first-generation, from under-resourced neighborhoods or from racial and ethnic minorities.
“Dr. Thompson is a visionary who saw the need for students underrepresented in STEM fields to have a strong academic community at a large institution,” said Manuella Djomaleu (B.S. '20, biological sciences), a former student of Thompson’s who went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco.
She also created the Catalyst seminar to encourage earlier engagement of students in individually mentored research, and for 20 years directed a competitive undergraduate research fellows program. Since 2023, she has served as principal investigator on a six-year grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Inclusive Excellence 3 initiative to continue its critical work building capacity for the inclusion of all students in science. Her efforts have received more than $11 million in funding.
"Dr. Thompson is the embodiment of all the ideals of this award, distinguished among educators on our campus and in a national context for her impact as a teacher and mentor, researcher, and leader committed to improving student access and outcomes in STEM majors, and to supporting faculty members in exploring, understanding, and improving the effectiveness of science teaching and learning," said CMNS Dean Amitabh Varshney and CMNS Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Robert Infantino.
Thompson earned her bachelor’s degree in biology and her master’s degree in zoology from Virginia Tech. After receiving her Ph.D. in zoology at UMD in 1992, she joined the faculty as a lecturer. She has served as an instructor of biological sciences, including an upper-level mammalogy class, and assumed her current role in 2017.
She participates in several STEM access and support initiatives, including the CMNS faculty advisory board for the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, the steering committee for the first-generation college student initiative, and her college’s diversity, equity and inclusion council. Since 2007, she has also served on the faculty advisory committee on course evaluations.
In addition, Thompson strives to support her fellow faculty members. She secured grant funding in 2006 for a disciplinary teaching and learning center that has expanded to all 10 CMNS departments. The early work of the center included the creation of faculty learning communities, consulting and mentoring programs, and courses to enhance pedagogy skills for graduate teaching assistants.
“Few campuses have people that have made such extensive contributions to undergraduate education,” said Marco Molinaro, executive director for educational effectiveness and analytics in the Teaching and Learning Transformation Center. “We, and the undergraduate STEM students at UMD, are very fortunate to have Kaci.”
Article adapted from text written by the Office of Marketing and Communications
