Dr Ros Kemp
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Dr Ros Kemp's teaching skills have been recognised with several national awards, but the one that gives her the most satisfaction is being declared OUSA Supervisor of the Year in 2013.
“That award was nominated by students and judged by students, so it means a lot to me,” she says.
In her own student days, Ros studied physics and then zoology before being so inspired by immunology lecturer Assistant Professor Glenn Buchan that she changed her degree course to his subject.
After honours, a PhD and post-doctoral fellowships at prestigious institutions in the USA and the UK, she returned to Otago, where she now teaches immunology and researches immune responses to cancer, with the long-term aim of being able to offer patients better diagnoses, prognoses and treatment.
She feels she learned far more than science from her revered former professor.
“He had a real talent for creating an immunology community, and an amazing ability to inspire students. If the awards suggest I'm continuing his legacy, I'd be happy to be considered at least trying to follow in his footsteps.
”I've tried to take the best ideas from my mentors and help students to learn not only the science but how to be scientists in the real world. It's a lot more complicated than just knowing the facts.”
Ros has seen undergraduate teaching change from formal to the more casual and relaxed interaction that now exists between students and staff.
“There's still a way to go. I'm trying to facilitate the shift from teaching just learning to teaching understanding.”
She believes Otago's flexible degree courses attract interesting students who like to try different subjects to find the ones they want to focus on.
Ros approves. “You'll always do the best with things you like doing.”