Last year, David Kass hit his first home run in a recreational
softball game. One of his former students was on the opposing
team and, after the game, the young man approached Kass
and thanked him for being such a great professor.
"One of my teammates (who didn't hear the conversation)
thought he'd come over to congratulate me on the home run," said
Kass, 49, an Eastern Michigan University associate biology
professor. "This was a whole lot better."
 |
LAB RATS: David Kass, an EMU associate
biology
professor, works in the lab with his students. Kass
was recently named the Ronald W. Collins
Distinguished
Faculty Award winner in the Research
II category.
The honor is presented to an outstanding
faculty
member, with four or more years at EMU, who
has
compiled an impressive body of research. |
Teaching doesn't come all that easily to Kass. A self-described
introvert in an extrovert's job, his success as a teacher
has come, in large part, through his passion as a researcher.
Kass, recipient of the 2009 Ronald W. Collins Distinguished
Faculty Award for Research II (four or more years) has
mentored 43 undergraduate and master's students since he
came to EMU in 1996, giving them meaningful experience
in major research projects while pushing for new knowledge
about genome dynamics.
"I was, first of all, honored that our department nominated
me," Kass said, pointing out that the only award he'd ever
won prior to the Collins Award was second place for a presentation
as a graduate student at the University of South Carolina. "We've
got some great people in our department, so it's a super
huge honor. I can't even put it into words, the fact that
I won something among my peers ... This is huge for me.
I'm still on 'cloud nine.'"
Kass's research involves retrotransposons, or jumping
genes. These genes and sequences of genes settle into the
mammalian genome in different places, causing variations
both good and bad. Kass, who works with rodents, is particularly
interested in how these jumping genes shape the genome
and what makes them jump. He's used internal research awards
to launch work that brought in bigger grants, including
money from the National Science Foundation and National
Institutes of Health - the big leagues of scientific funding.
"The more we understand about how genes jump in other
organisms, the more it will help us understand how genes
jump in humans," said Marianne Laporte, head of EMU's Biology
Department.
Kass had never heard of Eastern Michigan before he answered
the school's job posting, but EMU was looking for a molecular
geneticist with a research interest in evolution — a description
that fit him so precisely it might as well have included
his name.
"The rewarding thing for me, first of all, was developing
my own research program and breaking away from my postdoc
(research)," he said. "It was important to say, 'Hey, I
can make it as a scientist.' Also, I didn't get published
until after I got my Ph.D., and here I am helping students
achieve publications before they get their bachelor's degree...
Most of the students I've worked with are undergraduates
and virtually all of them have presented at symposium.
I've taken some to national meetings."
Kass's most recent paper had five undergraduates among
the authors, and his students have gone on to medical schools,
veterinary schools and doctoral programs around the country.
After a rocky first year, one of Kass's former students
was told, by an adviser, that she wasn't cut out for the
pre-med program at EMU. With encouragement from Kass, the
student brought her grades up, stayed with the program
and is now a third-year medical student in New Jersey.
"I would not have had the opportunities I've had if the
professors (I worked with) only took 'A' students," Kass
said. "I have a couple of students who got C's in my class."
Kass teaches course sequences in genetics and evolution,
and he approaches classroom teaching from a scientific
perspective. He challenges and helps students figure out
how things happen rather than just handing them facts.
"It's so hard to get a biology study to the point where
it's publishable with an undergrad or two," Laporte said. "It
takes incredible skill and patience to move them to the
place where they're producing publications. He's in an
incredibly competitive field, competing with labs that
have five post-doctoral students and three technicians
and who-knows-how-many Ph.D. students. And he's been able
to compete with them.
Laporte added, "Its a testament to his skill and his determination.
He makes it work with those students, and they have such
a positive experience as a result."
