Congratulations to Dr Beth Loveys from the School of Ag, Food and Wine who has been awarded the ASPS Teaching Award 2018 for her development, implementation and evaluation of innovative teaching practices in plant sciences.
The Australian Society of Plant Sciences awards this prize each year to recognise excellence, innovation and/or other contributions with successful learning outcomes to teaching plant science at University level.
Beth gained her PhD in plant ecophysiology under the supervision of Professor Steve Tyerman in 1998 from Flinders University in South Australia. During her first post-doctoral position at the University of York with Professor Owen Atkin, Beth began broadening her interest in plant physiology to examine the effects of climate change on plant growth, specifically temperature effects. This theme continued with her second post-doctoral position at the Australian National University where her work, with Professor Marilyn Ball as part of the CRC for Greenhouse Accounting, focused on impacts of elevated CO2.
In her current position as an Education Specialist at The University of Adelaide Beth is able to inspire the next generation of plant scientists teaching into Bachelor of Agricultural Science, Bachelor of Viticulture and Oenology and Applied Biology. Improving student engagement in all areas of plant science has been Beth’s motivation in recent years by the use of blended and active learning pedagogy. Beth’s success in implementing innovative teaching methodologies has been recognised by an Office of Learning and Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2015.
Beth will give an award lecture at COMBIO 2018, to be held in Sydney 23-26th September 2018, detailing her many innovations in plant science teaching.
