Biography
Dr. Sam Krerowicz (pronounced Ka-doh-vitch) is an organic chemist who teaches general chemistry, organic chemistry, and biochemistry at Indiana University East in Richmond, IN. He earned a bachelor's degree in environmental chemistry and biology from Northland College in Ashland, WI in 2012, and a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2018 studying methods to self-assemble large DNA molecules into microscale objects. He taught chemistry for a year at Bates College in Lewiston, ME for a year before moving to Richmond, IN in 2020 to teach at Indiana University East. As a graduate student at UW-Madison, Sam took many CIRTL classes and workshops on evidence-based teaching which he used to create a Socratic method style question and answer form of teaching as a TA for organic chemistry that he expanded into a flipped classroom when he had his first classroom at Bates College. Since moving to IU East, he has focused on refining this method of teaching to increase classroom participation, decrease the workload on students, and make the applications of chemistry to biological systems and the healthcare field more explicit. He has also worked on creating an organic chemistry lab curriculum that focuses on students being active participants in using data to make decisions on what to do to complete a lab. He is currently collaborating with Dr. Anindya Roy on a Teaching as Research project looking at overcoming technological barriers to students watching pre-class lectures together rather than by themselves.