Apple Valley Grad Receives Excellence In Teaching Award

MADISON, WI — An Apple Valley High School graduate is making a name for herself in the Badger State. The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Integrated Program in Biochemistry has awarded Sarah Hansen with the 2018 Denton Award for Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring.

IPiB is the joint graduate program of the Department of Biochemistry and Department of Biomolecular Chemistry.

The Denton Award honors students "who consistently provide quality guidance and scientific training in mentoring undergraduate students in their research efforts" and show evidence of "quality, commitment, and innovation in teaching," according to the school.

"I am very happy to receive this award because I have a passion for working with undergraduate students in the classroom and lab," The Apple Valley native said in a statement.

"I’ve been a graduate teaching assistant for seven semesters here at UW–Madison and have mentored four undergraduate students in the Hoskins Lab. My career goal is to teach and lead a research lab at a primarily undergraduate institution."

Hansen graduated from Apple Valley High School in 2007 before attending the University of St. Thomas for undergraduate education.

She currently studies the spliceosome, which is a molecular machine in the cells of organisms like yeast and humans. It helps ensure that proteins needed to survive are made correctly.

Errors in this process are known to cause several types of cancers and neurological diseases.

Photo by Robin Davies, UW–Madison Department of Biochemistry.