Rate My Professor Lara Hutson

Lara Hutson is a Teaching Professor in Biology at the University at Buffalo's Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. She earned a BS from the University of California, San Diego, a PhD from the University of Washington, and completed postdoctoral research at the University of Utah. Hutson joined the clinical faculty in 2010 and teaches essential undergraduate courses, including BIO 100 Foundations of Biology, BIO 199 Biology in the News, BIO 201 Cell Biology, BIO 211 Cell Biology Lab, and BIO 302 Molecular Biology. She authored the BIO 201/211 Cell Biology Laboratory Manual, published by Macmillan Learning in its 1st through 11th editions from 2014 to 2025. As chair of the Undergraduate Affairs Committee, she has led revisions to cell biology laboratories before, during, and after the pandemic, broadening offerings. Hutson pioneered flipped classroom techniques in her courses, resulting in improved student mastery of lecture material. She is a co-investigator on the project Scaling Academic Innovation to Address Equity Gaps.

Hutson's research interests encompass undergraduate STEM education and cell biology, building on her prior investigations into developmental biology with zebrafish models. Key publications include Small heat shock proteins are necessary for heart migration and laterality determination in zebrafish (Developmental Biology, 2013, with Lahvic et al.), Identification and analysis of a novel bmp4 enhancer in Fugu genome (Archives of Oral Biology, 2015, with Wang et al.), Pathfinding and error correction by retinal axons: the role of astray/robo2 (Neuron, 2002), Genome-wide analysis and expression profiling of the zebrafish small heat shock proteins (Gene, 2007, with Elicker), and Analyzing axon guidance in the zebrafish retinotectal system (Methods in Cell Biology, 2004, with Campbell and Chien). In STEM education, her works feature Zebrafish in Education: Tackling Big Problems with Little Fish (Zebrafish, 2024, with Jackstadt et al.), Redesigning Science Courses to Enhance Student Engagement and Performance (book chapter in Active Learning in College Science, Springer Nature, 2020, with Liu et al.), and Development and Validation of a Formative Evaluation Instrument for College Teaching (International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2022, with Liu). Hutson received the University at Buffalo Teaching Innovation Award.