Professor of the Year Nominee Calls UA’s Worm Shack Home

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A place nicknamed “The Worm Shack” might seem an unlikely venue to find a nominee for the U.S. Professor of the Year, but that’s where you can often locate Dr. Guy Caldwell, associate professor of biological sciences at The University of Alabama.

So dubbed by students in reference to the tens of thousands of microscopic worms which call Caldwell’s research laboratory home, “The Worm Shack” has drawn funding from some of the world’s most recognizable research organizations, including the March of Dimes and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. But research is only half the professorial equation, and it’s the other half, teaching, from whence Caldwell says he gets his greatest joy.

“He sets the standard for undergraduate teaching and mentoring at The University of Alabama, both inside and outside the classroom,” said UA President Robert E. Witt in his nomination letter to The Council for the Advancement and Support of Teaching and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, co-sponsors of the annual honor. “Guy Caldwell exemplifies the challenging, caring and inspiring academic life we seek to create for students.”

Since coming to UA in 1999, Caldwell has taught multiple biology courses, three of which he designed. One of those designed courses, Integrated Genomics, was first made possible through a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant to UA and is now supported through a $600,000 National Science Foundation CAREER award Caldwell won. It is a “discovery-based” course in which students conduct true experiments, ones with unknown outcomes. Students learn and use modern molecular biology and genetics methods, including using DNA sequence information in gene discovery and in gaining a better understanding of gene function.

A second course, The Language of Research, co-designed by Dr. Kim Caldwell, assistant professor of biological sciences at UA and Guy Caldwell’s wife, pairs students with faculty mentors prior to the students’ beginning laboratory research. Students, including those from UA and Stillman College, receive instruction in areas such as scientific lingo, research etiquette and how to analyze scientific literature.

Scientific discoveries made in the Caldwell Laboratory have drawn international attention.

Earlier this year, the lab’s researchers demonstrated that a specific protein protects against the loss of the brain neurons whose demise leads to Parkinson’s disease.

The findings, obtained from research on the worm model system, C. elegans, were published in The Journal of Neuroscience. In an earlier breakthrough, researchers in the Caldwell Lab demonstrated how the worm could serve as powerful model for epilepsy research, after discovering ways to mimic epileptic seizure in the tiny roundworm. Students played key roles in both discoveries.

“I am amazed by the sophisticated experiments conducted by his undergraduate team; they are as good as or better than what one encounters in some of the leading graduate programs around the world,” said Dr. John W. Holaday, a biotechnology entrepreneur and an adjunct professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Holaday, a UA alumnus, said Caldwell strives to teach students fundamentals while also engaging them in the discovery process. “His students are not merely trained, they have been inspired to achieve — at the highest levels of science.”

Involving students in research ensures a better understanding from where the lines in their classroom text come, said Caldwell. For some, the concept goes even further. “Unequivocally, the greatest joy I have had as a professor comes from working with undergraduates that have indeed changed those lines in textbooks through their research efforts.” Students share in that joy. “With Guy Caldwell, learning is just plain fun,” wrote Dr. Robert F. Olin, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, in which Caldwell teaches.

For four years in a row (2002-2005), a UA student Caldwell mentored has been named to the USA Today All-USA Academic Team. Caldwell-trained students have won two Goldwater scholarships, one Truman scholarship, the Benjamin Cummings Biology Prize and a Merit Award from the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. One of his student’s presentations at the American Society for Cell Biology international meeting – attended by 10,000 people – was selected as one of only 13 conference stories for inclusion in their Press Book, a document distributed as an educational tool to high schools and media outlets across the nation.

Caldwell’s research has also drawn financial support from the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, National Parkinson Foundation, the Bachmann-Strauss Dystonia and Parkinson Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Caldwell calls it an “honor” to teach. “The experience has enabled me to discover who I am; not purely a researcher, not exclusively a teacher, but I am indeed a professor. I simply could not be more proud of that career choice and what it embodies.”

National and state winners for the Professor of the Year will be announced in November. In 2001, UA’s Cornelius Carter, associate professor of dance, was named national Professor of the Year.