Monica Ann Pessina, clinical associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology at BU’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, has won this year’s Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching, one of the University’s highest teaching honors.

Accolades

Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine’s Monica Ann Pessina Named 2026 Metcalf Award Winner 

Clinical associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology teaches different students in different ways, sometimes even using clay and construction paper

Listen to Monica Ann Pessina explain all the different ways she teaches different students the anatomy of the upper extremity—aka the arm—and you’ll understand why she won this year’s Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching.

“Medical and PA students are working out what’s causing a patient’s shoulder pain, so I focus on the joint structure and the muscles and nerves in the area,” says Pessina, a clinical associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology at Boston University’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine.

“Dentists can develop shoulder problems in their work, so with dental students I teach the anatomy with a focus on posture and how they can prevent injury.

“Forensic anthropology students look at what bones can tell them about a person—so they need to learn about muscle attachments in the shoulder, because that can hint at the kind of work someone did.

“And occupational therapy students focus on function. They look at the shoulder as a point of stability for everyday tasks and may ask, ‘Where does this person need extra support?’”

“Professor Pessina’s ability to teach to the specific needs of various student populations is remarkable,” says the citation for her Metcalf Award, one of the University’s highest teaching honors, to be presented to Pessina at BU’s 153rd Commencement ceremony on May 17. “She is renowned for the clarity with which she presents the clinical applications of foundational concepts of anatomy.”

In addition to being a medical school professor, she is a course director in BU’s Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, and teaches in the BU Graduate Medical Sciences program, forensic anthropology program, and occupational therapy doctoral program. 

“Anatomy has a lot of details, and it gets kind of a bad rap sometimes,” Pessina says. “Students just make 1,000 note cards and memorize them all. Well, that’s not good for anyone, because they don’t really know it. I feel it’s important to always make a link to function. Whatever audience I’m talking to, it’s, ‘How are you going to use this information?’ I always make a connection. It transforms from just words on note cards and arrows pointing to things, to something that they can understand.”

Note cards aside, technology is creeping into her classes like everyone else’s. Tablets with drawing applications and detailed digital anatomical models quickly became popular. But it can be a double-edged sword.

“Not everybody has the latest devices,” Pessina says. “I specifically remember a student that came up to me after class, and I realized the limitations of their laptop, that they didn’t have the ability to draw and take notes on their screen. Up till that point, it hadn’t occurred to me as clearly that I need to make all of my teaching materials equally accessible to everyone.”

She took a big step sideways, adding low-tech methods to her classes. The students—a majority of them, anyway—enjoyed the break from all the technology that dominates their daily lives.

“If they want to draw on their computer, they can,” she says. “But I also hand out paper copies, and the clicky pens with the different colors. And students with the latest computers are still taking my paper and pen and drawing it out in class. I think there’s something about how we learn and how they learn that still finds value in pen and paper and physically doing something.”

As she describes it, her car resembles a kindergarten teacher’s: full of construction paper, clay, and tissue boxes for making models. “I always bring to class construction paper and a pair of scissors because random things will occur to me,” she says.

“Another thing that I do, whenever possible: I have the students act out moving their joints or whatever region I’m talking about,” she says. “It makes that shift from just memorizing words to, like, connecting to something, right?”

Pessina’s also involved in research on how motor control returns after stroke. “There are people in the lab looking at changes at the cellular level, while I’m looking at what happens with hand function under the different experimental conditions.”

A gift from the late Arthur G. B. Metcalf (Wheelock’35, Hon.’74), a BU Board of Trustees chair emeritus and former professor, funds the Metcalf Cup and Prize and Metcalf Awards for Excellence in Teaching, created in 1973 as the University’s highest teaching awards. The Metcalf Cup and Prize winner receives $10,000; the Metcalf Award winner(s), $5,000.

A University committee selects winners based on statements describing nominees’ teaching philosophies, supporting letters from colleagues and students, and classroom observation of the nominees. Julie A. Dahlstrom, associate dean of experiential education and clinical professor of law at the School of Law, is the winner of this year’s Metcalf Cup and Prize.

“I spent many months suppressing the whole concept” of the prize, Pessina says, “because you don’t want to get ahead of anything, right? But when it came through, I was very delighted. It represents me, but also all the people around me. I’m the product of my mentors and my colleagues and the people who I’ve learned from and watched through the years. So it feels like it’s an honor for all of us, to be recognized for something that I absolutely love doing every single day. So cool!” 

Find more information about Commencement 2026 here.