Rate My Professor Brian Buchwitz

Brian Buchwitz is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington. His fields of interest encompass Biology Education, Cell and Molecular Biology, and Development. Buchwitz plays a central role in undergraduate biology education, instructing key foundational courses including BIOL 106: Introductory Biology Seminar, which emphasizes learning, thinking, and writing as scientists; BIOL 200: Introductory Biology; and BIOL 355: Foundations in Molecular Cell Biology. He has consistently offered these courses over multiple academic terms, such as Autumn 2025 with BIOL 106 A, BIOL 106 B, BIOL 355 A and associated sections; Spring 2025 and Summer 2024 with BIOL 200 A; Winter 2025 with BIOL 106 A; and various quarters in 2024 and 2023, accommodating large enrollments through additional sections.

Buchwitz has made contributions to biology education scholarship, serving as a co-author on "Facilitating long-term changes in student approaches to learning science," published in CBE—Life Sciences Education (Fall 2012, Volume 11, Issue 3, pages 273-282), with collaborators Barbara T. Wakimoto, Catharine H. Beyer, Jon E. Peterson, Emile Pitre, Nevena Lalic, and Paul D. Sampson. This publication investigates methods to achieve enduring shifts in undergraduate students' approaches to science learning. Prior to his emphasis on teaching, Buchwitz contributed to fundamental research on chromosome dynamics in Caenorhabditis elegans, including genetic screens for the 2002 Genes & Development paper "Characterization of HCP-6, a C. elegans protein required to organize the holocentric chromosomes during the first meiotic division," as well as acknowledgments in the 2001 Journal of Cell Biology study on Hcp-4/Cenp-C and the 2004 Journal of Cell Science article on kinetochore reorganization during mitosis. He also participated in efforts related to evolutionary conservation in protein folding kinetics and Survivin-like BIR-1 proteins. Within the department, Buchwitz co-directed the UW Biology Majors: Building Community and Diversifying Leadership project with Jennifer Doherty, backed by the Diversity and Equity Committee. He engages with the Biology Learning and Teaching Community and has supported undergraduate tutoring through TriBeta.