William Barry Wood III, Ph.D., who was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in MCDB, passed away at the age of 86 on May 9 in Boulder. In 1972, following important discoveries early in his career, Wood at age 34 became one of the youngest researchers ever elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Later, Wood also emerged as a pioneer in the shifting field of science education. His innovations contributed important ideas and methods for improving the teaching of science at all levels.
Bill Wood came to CU Boulder in 1978, leaving a professorship at Cal Tech to serve as MCDB department chair. He continued in this department as teacher, researcher and administrator until his retirement in 2008. In addition to his spectacular career in Developmental Biology and Genetics, he was a masterful guitar player, song writer, and folk musician throughout his life. Indeed, in high school, he played in a group with John Hartford, who went on to an impressive career as a revered banjo musician and composer. While still an undergraduate at Harvard in the late 1950s, Bill teamed with Joan Baez on her historic first recording, entitled “Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square." He passed on his musical tradition to his sons, Oliver and Christopher, who have gained international musical recognition as “The Wood Brothers.”
Toward the end of his career, Wood turned his full attention to research on science education. In harmony with work spearheaded by Bruce Alberts from the National Academy of Sciences and by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman in the physics department at Boulder, Wood helped to develop a “questions” approach to teaching, suitable for any science pedagogy.
To challenge and assist college-level science teachers, he worked with Dr. Jo Handelsman, who later became a science advisor for President Obama. The pair started the National Institutes of Undergraduate Education in Biology. This thriving organization has had far reaching affects, helping to train thousands of faculty, especially at R1 institutions, how to apply active learning-based teaching.
This approach has been adopted widely, and it follows the Chinese principle of instruction, stated as a motto in Wood’s first biochemistry book: “I hear, and I forget; I see, and I remember; I do, and I understand.” In 2016, the Genetics Society of America bestowed on Wood its Elizabeth W. Jones Award for Excellence in Education, calling him “a pioneer in the reform of science teaching.”