Marion Field Fass is Professor and Chair of the Biology Department and Chair of the Health and Society Program.  She is interested in the intersection of individual biology, public health, sustainability and environmental factors that lead to the emergence of new diseases.  She has engaged with the interdisciplinary perspectives necessary to understand these relationships, and the opportunities to build curricula for undergraduate students that combine scientific investigations with social and cultural understanding and that motivate students to work for social justice.  Her research has focused on the measurement of community health needs and on methods of assessment of student learning. 

Marion is a SENCER  (Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities) Leadership Fellow and regularly serves as faculty for SENCER Summer Institutes. She was the PI of a grant from the Teagle Foundation  that investigated the relationships between learning in the major and all college goals.  She is currently co-PI on a Keck/Project Kaleidoscope Facilitating Interdisciplinary Learning grant.  Her courses include Human Biology, Microbiology, Emerging Diseases, Global Health and a first-year course on Slow Food (Beloit College Magazine, Summer 2008).

Education

            B.A. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

            Sc.D., Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD. 

Positions Held:

            Professor, Biology Department, Beloit College

            Faculty, SENCER Summer Institute

            Consultant, Oregon Public Broadcasting, Rediscovering Biology project,funded by                        Annenberg Foundation.

            Consultant, Beloit Corporation; Director of LifeStyle Program

            Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Practice,                                                             University of Wisconsin, Madison.           

             Science teacher (elementary), The Park School, Brooklandville,  MD.