Teaching awards honor Hang and Kapoor

Howard C. Hang, head of the Laboratory of Chemical Biology, and Tarun Kapoor, head of the Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Microbial Pathogenesis, were the recipients of this year’s Rockefeller University Distinguished Teaching Awards.

Established in 2005 to recognize outstanding individual contributions to the university’s educational environment, the teaching awards are presented each year to one or two faculty members. Chosen by a committee that includes the university’s scientific executive officers, awardees receive a plaque and a monetary gift. Dr. Kapoor (above, with President Marc Tessier-Lavigne) began teaching chemical biology with Tom Muir in the winter of 2002 and the two faculty members repeated the course in the fall of 2004, the spring of 2007 and the spring of 2009. Dr. Hang co-organized, with Nina Papavasiliou, an immunobiology course which the two faculty members taught together in 2009; Daniel Mucida will join them in 2012. Dr. Hang is also joining Dr. Kapoor for the 2012 chemical biology course, which is a required class for all students in the Tri-Institutional Chemical Biology Program. The teaching awards are presented by the president each year during the Convocation luncheon.