Biography

Dr. Brian P. Coppola is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan.  He currently serves as the department’s Associate Chair for Educational Development and Practice, which includes directing CSIE|UM, the department’s award-winning program for using faculty-led projects as the foundation for educating future faculty (sites.lsa.umich.edu/csie-um).

Dr. Coppola received his B.S. degree in 1978 from the University of New Hampshire and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984. Moving to Ann Arbor in 1986, he joined an active group of faculty in the design and implementation of a revised undergraduate chemistry curriculum.  His 1996-7 tenure review established a new policy within the College of Literature, Science and Arts at the University of Michigan, recognizing discipline-centered teaching and learning as an area that can be represented within the LSA departments.  He was promoted to Full Professor of Chemistry in 2001-2.  His publications range from mechanistic organic chemistry research in 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions to educational philosophy, practice and assessment.

In 1994, Dr. Coppola received the 4th campus-wide "Golden Apple Award" for outstanding teaching, a recognition organized and administered solely by undergraduate students. In 1996, he was awarded a United States Department of Energy, Undergraduate Computational Science Education Award. In 1998, Dr. Coppola was selected as part of the first group of Carnegie Scholars affiliated with The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's CASTL program (Carnegie Academy on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning). In 1999, Dr. Coppola received the Amoco Foundation Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching; and in 2002 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

He received the Kendall-Hunt Outstanding Undergraduate Science Teacher Award from the Society for College Science Teachers (2003), the American Chemical Society's James Flack Norris Award for work that has impacted the field of chemistry education. (2006), and the CASE/Carnegie Professor of the Year (State of Michigan, 2004; US National, doctoral institutions, 2009). In 2012, he received the 2012-14 Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching. He was named as an ACS Fellow (2015) and a State of Michigan Distinguished Professor (2016).

He is a member of the editorial boards of The Chemical Educator, The International Journal of Science Education, the Journal of Science Education and Technology, and the Journal of Chemical Education. He is the editor in chief of The Hexagon, the quarterly publication of Alpha Chi Sigma, the professional chemistry fraternity.