Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching

Provost's Award

2010-2011 Award Recipient

Richard and Virginia Eisenhart Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching: Supports faculty who have taught three years or less in their pursuit of excellence in teaching and leadership in the campus community.


Sandra J. Connelly
Sandra J. Connelly, Ph.D., Assistant Professor

Department of Biology/School of Biological and Medical Sciences
College of Science

Dr. Sandra Connelly joined RIT in 2009 and teaches courses in applied General Biology and Ecology of UV Radiation. Dr. Connelly's current research interest is investigating the fitness of freshwater and marine invertebrates with climate change, effect of temperature and UV on induction of DNA damage, genomic shifts in freshwater invertebrates with UV exposure, and enhancement of pigments in Daphnia with temperature and UV, and the biochemical effects of Vitamin D on freshwater invertebrates in high UV-radiation systems. She has authored or co-authored five publications and six professional presentations since 2007 and has mentored 12 independent study research students, including 3 deaf or hard-of-hearing students, between 2008 and 2011.

Focusing on student success, Dr. Connelly redesigned an introductory biology sequence (lectures and labs) for non-biology majors, implementing the use of the iClicker Student Response System and redesigned labs for Comparative Physiology to better achieve learning outcomes.