David Hanson, Department of Chemistry at Stony Brook University, at open house

David Hanson is 1960 graduate of Waseca High School. This year he was appointed as State University of New York Distinguished Service Professor, a capstone to his thirty-eight year career as an innovative educator in the Department of Chemistry at Stony Brook University.

David Hanson was the fifth Waseca High School Graduate between 1957 and 1960 to matriculate to Dartmouth College. 

At Dartmouth, he received a citation Award in Organic Chemistry, the Dupont Chemistry Prize, the Haseltine Chemistry-Physics Prize, and was inducted into the Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa - signs of great things to come.

He earned his PhD in Physical Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology.

Following a year in Munich studying under Nobel Laureate R.L. Mossbauer, David joined the department of Chemistry at Stony Brook University.

He excelled at research, teaching and service.  He has over 140 publications and has received the following recognitions: Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, NATO Senior Fellowship in Science, and Teaching awards from graduating classes at Stony Brook.

Motivated by the recognition that traditional teaching methods no longer were meeting students' educational needs, he developed a coherent set of strategies to address these issues published in two seminal papers.  That research evolved into what is now called POGIL and has resulted in fundamental new approaches to teaching chemistry across the nation. He has conducted over 90 workshops with university faculty to help them change the way they teach.

His current research focuses on assessing student learning, identifying teaching strategies that support successful team-learning environments and developing learning activities that are based in research on how people learn.

Waseca is proud to honor David Hanson with the Alumni Achievement Award.