Featured Faculty: Steve Caruso

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 10:17:00 -0500
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Inspiring, passionate, enthusiastic, and motivational: these are just a few of the words former graduate teaching assistants (TAs) used to describe UMBC Biological Sciences senior lecturer Steven Caruso, Ph.D.

“For me he is an example of commitment, motivation and love towards teaching,” said Margarita Correa Mendez, who was previously Dr. Caruso’s TA.“He is very creative and his class is unique in the way that it allows students to have a hands-on experience in science, in which the goal is to teach them to be independent scientist that handle their time and experiments.”

“He cares about students a lot,” added Ling Cao, who has been a TA for Dr. Caruso for almost 4 years. “He’s always available when you need him in the lab and he always makes time for tutoring students.”

Dr. Caruso currently teaches Molecular and General Genetics and the associated lab – required courses for Biology majors.

“I think he makes a very important effort in teaching the future scientists the tools – writing, presenting, time management, experiment planning, among many other things – they will need in any career in science they decide to pursue,” said Correa Mendez.

During winter session, Dr. Caruso teaches BIOL 109-Life: An Introduction to Modern Biology, a lab-driven GEP course designed for non-science majors that covers a variety of modern issues related to molecular and Mendelian biology.

“Students should consider taking a class with Steve Caruso because he works to make his classes interesting and give a real lab experience,” said Cassie Nelson, who TA’d for Dr. Caruso in 2013 and 2015. “He treats his undergraduate students more like graduate students, allowing them to use their knowledge to troubleshoot their own experiments, much like they would do in a real lab scenario.

“I wish I had a professor like him in my undergrad years,” added Correa Mendez. “I feel that Steve is such a great human being that having him as a professor will have a positive, motivational impact in the students.”

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BIOL 109: Life – Introduction to Modern Biology is being offered during the 2016 UMBC Winter Session, and fulfills your Science Plus Lab general education requirement (GEP) requirement.

Register Now!

Discover the basic biological concepts and components of nature. This is a lab-driven course in which students take a more hands-on approach to learn about the nature of DNA, heredity, human genetics, and the process of mutation.