Mary Purugganan
Mary Purugganan is a Senior Lecturer in Professional Communications in the Wiess School of Natural Sciences.
Dr. Purugganan received her B.S. in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University, her Ph.D. in Biochemistry/Cell Biology from Rice University, and studied as a Cancer Research Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at Baylor College of Medicine. She taught scientific communication for eight years as part of the Cain Project in Engineering and Professional Communication at Rice. She currently teaches NSCI 121: Writing Professionally in Natural Sciences and collaborates with faculty in Natural Sciences to incorporate communication instruction and assignments into the curriculum.
Dr. Purugganan’s research interests include visual communication in the biosciences, data representation, and learning through discussion. She trains discussion group leaders for BIOS 201: Introductory Biology and is currently conducting a research study of how learning through discussion affects mastery and retention of course material.
Mary Purugganan, Ph.D.
Office: 211-B Anderson Biological Labs
Phone: 713-348-6128
email: maryp at rice.edu
