Robyn A. Puffenbarger - Associate Professor of Biology
Dr. Robyn Puffenbarger
Associate Professor
Department of Biology
Robyn Puffenbarger is an associate professor of biology whose subject area is molecular immunology.
"As a working scientist, my favorite part of teaching is getting students to design their own experiments in upper-level biology courses," Puffenbarger says. "In the non-majors biology course, I ask students what questions they have about biology, and then we work together to set up an experiment to answer their questions."
Puffenbarger goes on to note that she enjoys seeing her advisees - students who come in as freshmen with fixed ideas about what they want and then change over the years as courses and new ideas shape their viewpoints. She said she remembers in particular a young man who was "gung ho" about a laboratory research career who ended up seeking admission to an MD/Ph.D. program.
"I also like to hear from students who didn't get where they wanted the first time they tried," she says. "Veterinary school is particularly competitive, and one young woman took two years after graduation to get into vet school. But she is close to finishing, now, and wants to move to Chicago to set up practice."
Puffenbarger, whose research focues on the expression and regulation of the type 2 cannabinoid receptor in macrophages, has published in the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology and the Journal of Biological Chemistry, in addition to providing chapters for a number of books.
She earned her bachelor's degree from Virginia Tech and her doctorate in molecular immunology from the Medical College of Virginia. |
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