The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has awarded Diane O’Dowd, UC Irvine professor of developmental & cell biology and anatomy & neurobiology, a four-year, $600,000 grant supporting her efforts to improve biology education at research universities. O’Dowd will continue to identify new ways of helping current and future faculty maintain productive research careers while teaching more effectively. She has found that faculty, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students enthusiastically embrace active learning strategies for large undergraduate classes when given evidence of their efficacy and support during implementation. The grant is a continuation of HHMI funding O’Dowd originally received in 2006.