Sue Carson
Director, Master of Microbial Biotechnology Program
She/Her
Professor, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
Fellow, Office of Faculty Excellence
Bio
Dr. Carson’s area of scientific expertise is in molecular mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis. She currently serves as the Director of the Master of Microbial Biotechnology Program and as a Fellow in the Office of Faculty Excellence. Prior to this appointment, she led the NC State Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), focused on faculty development to cultivate students’ critical and creative thinking skills across disciplines. During that period, she also acted as Executive Director of Academic Enrichment Programs, overseeing the Office of Undergraduate Research, Fellowship Advising, and the University Honors and Scholars Programs. Dr. Carson spent over ten years leading curriculum development for the NC State Biotechnology Program. She has received multiple awards for teaching excellence and innovation and was a member of the Howard Hughes Science Education Alliance, promoting and implementing inquiry-guided learning and authentic research in undergraduate curricula. She authored three molecular biology lab manuals, and has published numerous peer-reviewed papers in the area of course and curriculum development. She has mentored over 100 undergraduate students in research projects and was the PI and Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Integrative Plant and Microbial Systems Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program for over a decade. Most recently, she completed a 2-year rotation at the National Science Foundation in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources. Within the Triangle community, she has served on the Board of Directors of the Wake County Beekeeping Association and the Triangle Swing Dance Society.
Education
Ph.D. Microbiology University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
B.S. Biotechnology Rutgers
Area(s) of Expertise
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning; Microbial Biotechnology
Publications
- We Can Dance If We Want To (with Safety Measures) , MBIO (2022)
- Creation of a Cohort of Educational Research Practitioners: The TH!NK Researchers Program , The Journal of Faculty Development (2021)
- Adoption of evidenced-based teaching strategies in STEM and non-STEM courses after a common faculty development experience , 6th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd’20) (2020)
- Advancing Critical and Creative Thinking through Institutional Transformation , The RC20/20 Project: A digital publication of the Reinvention Collaborative (2019)
- Building a Culture of Critical and Creative Thinking. Creating and Sustaining Higher-Order Thinking as part of a Quality Enhancement Plan , 5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HIGHER EDUCATION ADVANCES (HEAD'19) (2019)
- Molecular Biology Techniques: A Classroom Laboratory Manual , (2019)
- An inclusive Research Education Community (iREC): Impact of the SEA-PHAGES program on research outcomes and student learning , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017)
- Paenibacillus larvae Phage Tripp Genome Has 378-Base-Pair Terminal Repeats , Genome Announcements (2016)
- TH!NK: A Framework to Assess and Support Critical and Creative Thinking , (2016)
- Who Scared the Cat? A Molecular Crime Scene Investigation Laboratory Exercise , Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education (2016)