Ruth Shear

Headshot of Ruth Shear.

Professor of Practice

Initiative Focus

Ruth Shear is a Professor of Practice in the Chemistry Department, and a Research Educator of the Urban Ecosystems research stream in the Freshman Research Initiative (FRI). After a PhD in Chemical Physics from Griffith University (Australia) and postdoctoral work at Stanford and Cornell, she started as a lecturer at UT Austin in 1996. After running the physical and analytical chemistry teaching labs for 10 years, she helped create FRI in 2006. She has been teaching Research Methods in various forms ever since. For the past four years, she spends most of her time with her research students in the UrbEco lab.

Department
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Making New Scientists: Supporting the Training of Incoming Science Majors

Cohort: 2021
Fellow: Ruth Shear

Traditional science degree programs concentrate primarily on content and are not known for preparing their graduates with other skills needed for scientific careers.