We are grateful to Al Ruesink’s family, friends, colleagues, and former students who have contributed to this award. You, too, can honor Ruesink’s passion for quality teaching by making an online memorial gift to the Ruesink Outstanding Instructor Teaching Award in Biology by clicking the Give Now button which links to a secure IU Foundation website.
Ruesink Outstanding Associate Instructor Teaching Award
This fellowship was created by Albert and Kathy Ruesink in December 2013 to promote and recognize excellent teaching by graduate students teaching in the IU Bloomington Department of Biology.
About Professor Al Ruesink
Professor Al Ruesink did his doctoral work in plant physiology at Harvard University. Upon graduation, he did postdoctoral work at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology for a year and then joined the Indiana University faculty in 1967.
At IU, Ruesink’s research addressed how plant cell walls grow and develop, but undergraduate teaching quickly became his first love. Prior to Ruesink’s official retirement in 2012, he taught more than 14,000 students and wrote over 2,700 letters of recommendation. Professor Ruesink chaired his departmental Curriculum and Courses Committee for 34 years, and for nearly two decades he supervised the department’s introduction to curriculum and teaching for graduate students preparing to be associate instructors.
Ruesink was heavily involved in university service work beyond his department and was a Faculty Council leader, including secretary, chair of subcommittees, and (longest-serving) member of the Budgetary Affairs Committee. From 1999 to 2005, he was Special Assistant to the President for Faculty Relations, working most closely with President Myles Brand. For his exceptional teaching, Dr. Ruesink received IU’s Amoco Teaching Award. The university also awarded him the W. George Pinnell Service Award for his service to the university. Students recognized him with the Senior Class Award for Teaching Excellence in Biology and Dedication to Undergraduates in 1999 and a Student Choice Award for Outstanding Faculty in 2010.
Ruesink and his wife, Kathleen, who was a popular University Division academic advisor before her retirement, sponsored the IU Folk Dancing Club for over 30 years. The couple was a familiar sight on the rural roads of Monroe County where they rode their semi-recumbent tandem bicycle, logging nearly 60,000 miles over the years.
2025 Ruesink Outstanding Associate Instructor: Holly Anderson
Holly is a 4th-year microbiology graduate student in the Dalia Lab, where she studies how bacteria regulate gene expression in response to environmental stimuli. She is passionate about teaching and supporting her students through their undergraduate careers and beyond. This award will support Holly as she continues her thesis work.
2025 Ruesink Outstanding Associate Instructor: Nick Haas
Nick is a 5th-year graduate student in the McKinlay lab with broad interests in microbial physiology and metabolism. His thesis project seeks to understand the metabolic constraints and genetic regulation of nitrogen metabolism in bacterial species with industrial potential. Following his defense, he plans on pursuing a career in sustainable bioprocessing to help provide environmentally conscious solutions to real-world industrial problems. It has been his rewarding privilege to be able to mentor so many students both within the lab and in classroom settings and help each of them engage with science in their own unique way. Nick greatly appreciates the recognition of his hard work in the form of this award, which will be used to help fund travel to an international conference this summer.
2024 Ruesink Outstanding Associate Instructor: Richard Hull
Rich is a PhD Candidate in the Reynolds Lab studying the flora of the Wabash River corridor in western Indiana. For his dissertation research, he has completed voucher-based surveys of 46 natural areas in this region, documenting almost half of the state's vascular plant species. This modern collection will be compared to the historical record to gauge the impacts of different aspects of environmental change on the flora of this river corridor, including anthropogenic climate change. Post-graduation, Rich hopes to pursue a career in collections management, teaching, or environmental consulting.
2024 Ruesink Outstanding Associate Instructor: Abby Jackson
Abby is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Microbiology program in the Kearns lab. To gain more teaching experience, she is working on a minor in College Pedagogy from IU's School of Education and also tries to teach once or twice a year. Her goal is to eventually teach biology at a small, undergraduate institution.
2024 Ruesink Outstanding Associate Instructor: Averi McFarland
Averi is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Malcolm Winkler’s lab. Her research is focused on the coordination of peptidoglycan synthesis and precursor metabolism in the major upper respiratory pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae. In addition to her research, she has taught IFLE undergraduate students in a laboratory setting as well as several semesters of Molecular Microbiology.
2024 Ruesink Outstanding Associate Instructor: Kat Sestrick
In the Polly lab, Kat studies how developmental constraints and functional demands interact to shape phenotypic variation and macroevolutionary trends in the dentition of mammals. She will use the award to help fund travel during the fall semester at the University of Helsinki in Finland.
About the Albert Ruesink Outstanding Associate Instructor Teaching Award in Biology
This fund supports an annual award that promotes and recognizes excellent teaching by graduate students teaching in the IU Bloomington Department of Biology. Candidates must be Department of Biology majors or related majors who have been selected for the award because of their teaching within the Department of Biology. The number of recipients each year should never exceed three. Should sufficient income be available after the teaching award is granted, this fund could also be used to send departmental graduate students to conferences primarily related to teaching, with preference given to students presenting papers or posters at these conferences.
This award was established in 2013 by Albert and Kathy Ruesink. During their careers at Indiana University, the couple mentored thousands of students.
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