CIRTL Researcher Spotlight: Nilhan Gunasekera

Nilhan Gunasekera and the CIRTL Diversity Institute
Melissa Tully

Nilhan Gunasekera, Chemistry Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Rock County, began working with the CIRTL Diversity Institute through the UW-Colleges/UW-Madison Collaboration Research grant in summer 2005.  In the following interview he discusses his interests in teaching and research and how he got involved with CIRTL.

How did you get interested in teaching and research and issues of diversity?

After I graduated high school in Sri Lanka I moved to the United States for college.  I attended the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire where I worked for a program that provided tutoring for students from ethnic minorities and from low-income families.  I tutored both English and chemistry, lending to my interdisciplinary academic interests.  My experience as a tutor got me interested in teaching as a career.  I received my Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, where I was in an interdisciplinary program in biochemistry and analytical chemistry.  I worked as a teaching assistant and participated in a certificate program for preparing future faculty.  In the certificate program I got to do a teaching internship where I got to lecture and work one-on-one with a faculty mentor.  This experience taught me a great deal about teaching and solidified my desire to teach. 

I knew I wanted to teach at a smaller university where I could utilize my interdisciplinary interests.  This led me to the UW-Colleges system because it stresses a liberal arts education, there are many opportunities for collaborative work among departments, and the classes are small.  My organic chemistry course, for example, has between 6-10 students per semester so I get to work one-on-one with my students and learn more about their academic needs.  The small class size contributes to my own research on improving chemical education and making science courses more welcoming to a broader student audience.
 
How did you get involved with the CIRTL Diversity Institute and what have been your major contributions to the group?

My own research interests in professional development and diversity in science and chemical education lead me to the CIRTL Diversity Institute.  Certain science fields are losing students, and I want to find ways to bring students back to STEM disciplines.  I am interested in approaching the groups that have been historically under-represented in the sciences (minorities and women) and that is how I got involved with CIRTL.  I was awarded the UW-Colleges/UW-Madison Collaboration Research grant and since then have been working with Judith Burstyn, CIRTL Co-PI and Diversity Institute Lead Scholar, and her group to edit and update some of the Diversity Institute resources.  I have also been focused on disseminating the resources.  Since I have connections to other UW system campuses, I am able to distribute the resources to other campuses.  For example, I did a presentation at a UW Women in Science Conference last November, which is meant for new STEM faculty from all 26 UW campuses.  Getting the resources in the hands of STEM faculty is essential so they can begin to learn from them and implement the strategies.   Katherine Friedrich, a graduate student in Environmental Studies and Diversity Institute resource co-author, and I will be presenting at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)  meeting to target a more national audience.  Now that we have edited and updated the resources it is important to let people know about them.  I hope that faculty will use the resources in their own classrooms and tell their colleagues about them as well. 

For more information about the CIRTL Diversity Institute visit the website at http://www.cirtl.net/DiversityResources/.

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