HCC Professor Tami Imbierowicz Receives Biology Teaching Award

Harford Community College Professor Tami Imbierowicz was recently awarded the NABT Two-Year Biology Teaching Award at the National Association of Biology Teachers Conference in Chicago, Illinois.

Sponsored by NABT's Two-Year College Section and Cell Zone, this award recognizes a two-year college biology educator who employs new and creative techniques in his/her classroom teaching. The award includes a $500 travel honorarium to attend the NABT Professional Development Conference, a recognition plaque, and one year of complimentary membership to NABT.

Prof. Imbierowicz is highly involved with her students both inside and outside of the classroom and provides them with exceptional learning opportunities. For example, she was a faculty participant with several students in a group that attended the National Institutes of Health Community College Day in 2017 and 2019. The event provided students and faculty an opportunity to visit the NIH campus to learn about careers and summer research internship opportunities in biomedical and health care fields. Prof. Imbierowicz was also a member of a team that guided students in their winning submission for the Maryland Sustainable Growth Challenge (MSGC) in 2018 with their project “Edgewood Fitness Zone: Free To Be Fit.” The MSGC is an annual competition hosted by the Maryland Department of Planning that engages students from four-year universities and community colleges.

She utilizes Harford’s campus as an outdoor learning lab, exploring the habitat in the courses she teaches, using the pond to explain predator and prey concepts to students in an ecology course and studying the native plants growing on campus in her botany courses. One of Professor Imbierowicz’s real-world application projects involved DNA barcoding of trees for the Campus Arboretum project. She also participated in the HCC Gone Wild Project that included tracking wildlife on campus, creation of an apiary for bees, nature trail enhancements, educational signage, and installation of bird and bat boxes throughout campus.

Prof. Imbierowicz co-authored a Fundamentals of Biology Laboratory Manual and has converted the Biology 100 course to use an Open Educational Resource (OER) textbook, resulting in substantial cost savings for HCC students. She also takes a leadership role in designing and conducting the assessment activities for several biology and environmental science courses within the STEM division.

In addition to teaching, she is the Principal Investigator (PI) on the five-year, $648,963 National Science Foundation grant entitled “STEM High-Intensity Student Engagement Model.” As the PI on this grant, Prof. Imbierowicz takes the lead on organizing, conducting, documenting, and assessing all activities of the grant. She heads a team of four additional HCC faculty and coordinates with Dr. Leigh Abts of the University of Maryland, who serves as the external evaluator for the project. As of fall 2019, 28 students who demonstrated financial need received S-STEM scholarships. Ultimately, approximately $470,000 will be disbursed to students in the form of scholarships and summer stipends for research over the course of the five-year grant. Engaging students early in their academic career in an authentic research experience is a nationally-recognized best practice to help students from all backgrounds persist through to graduation in their STEM education. Prof. Imbierowicz’s leadership and dedication to the S-STEM initiative will make this possible for many HCC students from less advantaged backgrounds.

She is a founding committee member for the Maryland Collegiate STEM Conference, an annual regional meeting of two-year campuses that features presentations from students and faculty of ongoing research projects and innovative teaching practices in STEM. She also serves on the College’s Sustainability Committee and works with campus facilities personnel to ensure that Harford’s campus operations minimize their environmental impact as much as possible.

In addition, Prof. Imbierowicz is active in the community and serves on the Maryland Water Monitoring Council Conference’s student networking committee and the Deer Creek Watershed Association. She has presented her findings on water quality in a variety of forums, including scientific presentations and public information sessions. She was appointed to the Harford County Environmental Advisory Board.

A dedicated instructor and researcher, she has been working at Harford Community College for 18 years.