Biology
Rebecca Roberts
Professor of Biology
My research focuses on understanding how to best move students from thinking like students to thinking like scientists.
Rebecca Roberts is an active member of the Biology Department and the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Program. She is interested in developing the best ways to move undergraduate students toward thinking as true scientists. She helped develop a biochemistry lab curriculum that challenges students to work with proteins in the Protein Data Bank whose structures have been solved but whose functions are still unknown. The BASIL: Biochemistry Authentic Scientific Inquiry Lab curriculum and associated research has been funded by three National Science Foundation grants. To learn more about the BASIL CURE (Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience) being used at colleges and universities around the country, go to biosilbiochem.org.
Dr. Roberts is also a member of the steering committee of BioMolViz, an organization focused on developing biomolecular visual literacy. With both BASIL and BioMolViz, Dr. Roberts travels nationally to facilitate workshops for faculty who wish to learn how to best develop scientific thinking and biomolecular visual literacy in their own students.
In previous years at Ursinus she involved students in her research laboratory studying the effect of hormonal regulation of enzymes, with a focus on the roles of estrogen and bisphenol A in autoimmune diseases and cancer. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, she became a Visiting Professor at Carleton College in Northfield, MN, where she first became interested in the environmental estrogen, bisphenol A. She has twice presented expert testimony to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives regarding toxin-free toddler and baby products
Department
Degrees
- B.A., Clark University
- Ph.D., University of Massachusetts
Teaching
BCMB-351 Biochemistry I: Protein Biochemistry
BCMB-452W Biochemistry II: Metabolism
BIO/BCMB-452W Structural Biology
BIO-220 Innovation in Biology
BIO-102 Cell Biology
CIE-200 Common Intellectual Experience Seminar
Research Interests
Understanding how students learn biomolecular visualization skills
Understanding how students develop collaborative skills across disciplines
Proteases
Hormonal regulation
Environmental Endocrine Disruptors
Autoimmunity
Antigen processing and presentation
Cancer
Recent Work
Ringer McDonald, A, R. Roberts, B. Hall, and J. Koeppe. (2022) Undergraduate structural biology education: A shift from users to developers of computation and simulation tools. Invited review. Curr. Opin. Structural Biology 72:39-45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbi.2021.07.012
Lubin, J.H., C. Zardecki, E.M., Dolan, C. Lu, Z. Shen, S. Dutta, J.D. Westbrook, B.P. Hudson, D.S. Goodsell, J.K. Williams, M. Voigt, V. Sarma, L, Xie, T. Venkatachalam, S. Arnold, L.H.A. Alvarado, K. Catalfano, A. Kahn., E. McCarthy, S. Staggers, B. Tinsley, A., Trudeau, J. Singh, L. Whitmore, H. Zheng, M. Benedek, ,J. Currier, M. Dresel, A. Duvvuru, B. Dyszel*, E. Fingar, E.M. Hennen, M. Kirsch, A.A. Khan, C. Labrie-Cleary, S. Laporte, E. Lenkeit, K. Martin*, M.O.M. Ortiz-Alvarez de la Campa, I. Paredes, B. Wheeler, A. Rupert, A. Sam, K. See, S.S. Zapata, P.A. Criag, B.L. Hall, J. Jiang, J.R. Koeppe, S.A. Mills, M.J. Pikaart, R. Roberts, Y. Bromberg, J. Steen Hover, S Duffy, J. Tischfield, F.X. Ruiz, E. Arnold, J. Baum, J. Sandberg, G. Brannigan, S.D. Khar, and S.K. Burley. (2021) Evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 proteome in three dimensions (3D) during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Proteins: Structure, Function, Bioinformatics. https://doi.org/10.1002/prot.26250
Sikora, A., Irby, S.M., Hall, B.L., Mills, S.A., Koeppe, J.R., Pikaart, M.J., Wilner, S., Craig, P.A., and Roberts, R. (2020) Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic by the Biochemistry Authentic Scientific Inquiry Lab (BASIL) CURE Consortium: Reflections and a mini case study on the switch to remote learning. J. Chem. Ed. 97(9):34555-3462. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00729.
Burley, S.K., Bromberg, Y., Craig, P., Duffy, S., Dutta, S., Hall, B.L., Hudson, B.P., Jiang, J., Khare, S.D., Koeppe, J.R., Lubin, J.H., Mills, S.A., Pikaart, M.J., Roberts, R., Sarma, V., Singh, J., Tiscfield, J.A., Xie, L., Zardecki, C. (2020) Virtual Boot Camp: COVID-19 Evolution and Structural Biology. Biochem and Mol Biol Ed. 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.21428
Procko, K., Engelman, S., Jakubowski, H., Beckham, J. T., Dean, D., Franzen, M., Novak, W., Roberts, R., Roca, A., Shor, A., Terrell, C., D. Dries. (2020) BioMolViz Workshops for Developing Biomolecular Visualization Assessments. Biochem and Mol Biol. Educ. 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.21440
Procko, K. and R. Roberts. (2020) The surprising comfort of learning objectives. https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/careers/032420/the-surprising-comfort-of-learning-objectives
Roberts, R. and N. Reyna (2020) CURE Sustainability: Make it Flexible. https://serc.carleton.edu/curenet/institutions.html
Bonnie L. Hall, Rebecca Roberts, Julia Koeppe, Paul A. Craig. (2020) Attending a Conference When You Don’t Have the Budget. ASBMB Today. Editor reviewed. https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/careers/013020/attending-a-conference-on-a-budget
Roberts, R., Hall, B., Daubner, C., Goodman, A., Pikaart, M., Sikora, A,, Craig, P. (2019) Flexible Implementation of the BASIL CURE. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education. 47(5):498-505. https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.21287
McDonald, A.R., Bernstein, H.J., Daubner, S.C., Goodman, A., Irby, S.M., Koeppe, J.R., Mills, J.L., O’Handley, S.F., Pikaart, M.J., Roberts, R.A., Sikora, A., Craig, P.A. (2019) BASIL Biochemistry Curriculum. https://doi.org/10.35071/m89q-fa20
Sikora A, Craig, P.A., Bernstein, H.J., Daubner, C., Goodman, A., Irby, S.M., Koeppe, J.R., Mills, J.L., O’Handley S.F., Pikaart, M., Ringer McDonald, A., Roberts, R. (2019) CURE Sustainability: Biochemistry Authentic Scientific Inquiry Lab (BASIL), Ursinus College. https://serc.carleton.edu/curenet/collection/220515.html
Craig, P.A., Anderson, T., Bernstein, H.J., Daubner, C., Goodman, A., Irby, S., Koeppe, J., Mills, J.L., Pikaart, M., Ringer McDonald, A., O’Handley, S., Roberts, R., R. Stewart. (2018) Using protein function prediction to promote hypothesis-driven thinking in undergraduate biochemistry education. The Chemist, Journal of the American Institute of Chemists. 91:(1). http://theaic.org/pub_thechemist_journals/Vol-91-No-1/Vol-91-No1-Article-1.html
Chakhtoura, M., Sriram, U., Heayn, M.*, Wonsidler, J.*, Doyle, C.*, Dinnall, J., Gallucci, S., Roberts, R.A. (2017). Bisphenol A does not mimic Estrogen in the promotion of the in vitro response of murine Dendritic Cells to Toll-Like-Receptor ligands. Mediators of Inflammation, vol. 2017, doi:10.1155/2017/2034348 https://www.hindawi.com/journals/mi/2017/2034348/
Dao, J.* and Roberts, R.A. (2012) Bisphenol A: Mothers Shouldn’t Have to be Scientists. Chapter in edited collection titled “Liberation Science: Putting science to work for social and environmental justice”. Edited by Steven Emerman. ISBN: 978-1-300-43792-5