Heinz Koch was awarded a master’s degree in chemistry from Haverford College in 1956 and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Cornell University in 1960. He arrived at Ithaca College in 1965 to pursue a career in teaching and to develop a program for undergraduate research. Since then, he has taught almost every student who majored in chemistry at IC. His courses included Organic Chemistry I, Experimental Chemistry II and III, and occasional sections of Advanced Organic Chemistry. Professor Koch always enjoyed classroom teaching but says that the single most rewarding part of his career at Ithaca College was “collaborating with undergrads on research and then following their outstanding careers.” He believes in practical, hands-on work performed by undergraduate students, and this has been the cornerstone of his approach towards his work. Evidence of experiential learning as his approach to teaching is the many journal articles he has published that list his students as coauthors for the research they had done. Professor Koch’s love of teaching took him far afield: he was an NSF faculty fellow and visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1971 to 1973, a Dana visiting professor at the University of Rochester in 1991, and he also taught at several esteemed universities in France and New Zealand.
