John Straub Serves as Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar
The Phi Beta Kappa’s Visiting Scholar Program (VSP) offers undergraduates the opportunity to spend time with some of America’s most distinguished scholars. It aims to contribute to the intellectual life of the campus by making possible an exchange of ideas between the Visiting Scholars and the resident faculty and students.
Professor John Straub is one of the 14 scholars selected by the 2011-2012 VSP Committee. Visiting eight schools (five in Fall 2011 and three in Spring 2012), he spends two days at each, giving a public lecture, meeting with undergraduates and faculty members, and participating in classroom discussions and seminars.
The schools on his itinerary are:
- Wake Forest University
- Florida State University
- Colorado College
- University of South Dakota
- Penn State University
- University of North Carolina at Greensboro
- Denison College
- Gettysburg College
Professor Straub’s research focuses on the development and use of mathematical and computational models to uncover the principles governing the fundamental processes of energy transfer, signaling, folding, misfolding, and aggregation that underlie protein function. His excellence as an educator has been recognized by Boston University by Gitner and Metcalf Awards. Committed to scientific outreach and communication, he has served as chair of the Theoretical Chemistry Subdivision of the American Chemical Society and as president of the Telluride Science Research Center, as well as on advisory panels to the Pinhead Institute, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.