Rate My Professor Brian Buchwitz

Brian Buchwitz is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington. He earned his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Washington in 2004. His doctoral dissertation, titled "Chromosome segregation in the holocentric organism C. elegans," supervised by Mark Brantly Roth, investigated mechanisms of chromosome segregation during cell division in this model organism. Early in his career, Buchwitz contributed to research on protein folding and cell biology. He is listed as a co-author on "Evolutionary Conservation in Protein Folding Kinetics," published in the Journal of Molecular Biology in 2000, which analyzed the evolutionary conservation of residues influencing protein folding rates across beta-sheet proteins. His work during this period supported studies on kinetochore assembly and centromere function in C. elegans, as reflected in acknowledgments in publications such as those characterizing HCP proteins in the Journal of Cell Biology.

In more recent years, Buchwitz has focused on biology education and undergraduate teaching. He co-authored the paper "Facilitating long-term changes in student approaches to learning science," published in CBE—Life Sciences Education (Fall 2012, Volume 11, Issue 3, pp. 273-282), with Barbara T. Wakimoto, Catharine H. Beyer, Jon E. Peterson, Emile Pitre, Nevena Lalic, and Paul D. Sampson. This research evaluated interventions designed to promote enduring shifts in how students approach learning in introductory biology courses across multiple quarters and instructors. As a Teaching Professor, Buchwitz delivers core undergraduate courses including BIOL 200 (Introductory Biology), BIOL 106 (Introductory Biology Seminar), and BIOL 355 (Foundations in Molecular Cell Biology). His teaching schedule encompasses multiple sections over various quarters, such as Autumn 2025 (BIOL 106 A/B, BIOL 355 A/AA/AB/AC/AD), Spring 2025 (BIOL 200 A), Winter 2026 (BIOL 106 A), and prior terms from 2023 to 2024. He is affiliated with the fields of Cell and Molecular Biology and Biology Education, serves as an academic adviser in Biology Academic Services, and processes applications for UW TriBeta, the national biology honor society.