Dr Sophie Rutschmann received the Established Educator Award 2026 from the Biochemical Society for her focus on education at Imperial.
Each year, the Biochemical Society presents a series of prestigious awards that recognise excellence and achievements. The winners are assessed? by a judging panel of respected scientists from across a range of different scientific backgrounds.
This year, Dr Sophie Rutschmann from the Department of Immunology and Inflammation, received the Teaching Excellence Award which recognises individual excellence, commitment to continuing professional development, commitment to students and colleagues, as well as sustained and continued impact.
"The recognition of my work’s quality and impact by educators in my STEM field validates my approaches, boosts my confidence, and gives me renewed energy to continue my endeavours!" Dr Sophie Rutschmann Department of Immunology and Inflammation
Dr Rutschmann is course director of the MSc Immunology at Imperial where she continuously innovates to keep the curriculum relevant and to ensure the solid training of its students in both experimental and theoretical immunology. She also is the appointed Faculty of Medicine Digital Education Lead where she has co-led the creation of the Digital Education Office at Imperial.
Using her dual experience in both research and education, she passionately advocates imbedding authentic aspects of the scientific community in the classroom to develop student’s knowledge critical thinking skills.
In particular, she has implemented a student-centered taught laboratory module in which students design, execute, analyse, and troubleshoot their own mini-research project, has designed a module during which students teams attend a national Immunology conference to investigate a topic and report their findings, and developed a very successful immunology suite of open content courses available for free to thousands of learners worldwide.
Sophie said: "I am extremely honoured to have been awarded the Established Educator Teaching Excellence Award by the Biochemical Society. The recognition of my work’s quality and impact by educators in my STEM field validates my approaches, boosts my confidence, and gives me renewed energy to continue my endeavours! This award also recognises the support I have received from past and present colleagues, the opportunity I had to interact with exceptional students, and the work we all do in training the next generation of scientists.”
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Meesha Patel
Faculty of Medicine Centre
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Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 7909
Email: meesha.patel17@imperial.ac.uk
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