Massachusetts-based Worcester Polytechnic Institute Professor Reeta Rao has been named a recipient of the 2018 SIMB Waksman Outstanding Teaching Award by the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology.

Reeta Rao, who was nominated by former WPI students, was honored at the SIMB Annual Conference in Chicago this month.

The Waksman Outstanding Teacher Award is given annually to one professor who demonstrates particular excellence in and dedication to teaching, mentoring and research.

The award acknowledges the important role educators play in sustaining the fields of industrial microbiology and biotechnology; it is dedicated to Nobel prize laureate Selman Waksman, who was an outstanding teacher of microbiology at Rutgers University.

“I love teaching and mentoring—it’s the best part of my job,” said Rao in a statement. “Mentoring is really about helping students plan the rest of their professional lives—helping them figure out who they are, what they want to do, and how to get there. I have been lucky to have been surrounded by positive role models and mentors throughout my own professional career. I am committed to paying it forward.”

Rao was nominated by several of her students including Charu Jain, her first doctoral student, who completed her doctorate in 2012 and is now head of biotechnology at L.J. Institute of Applied Sciences in India.

In addition to developing and teaching undergraduate and graduate classes, Rao has advised more than 50 undergraduates completing MQPs, master’s students and doctorate students. She has also served as the graduate program coordinator for WPI’s Department of Biology and Biotechnology since 2011 and was elected to a three-year term on the faculty Committee on Graduate Studies and Research, which she co-chairs this year.

Rao has been involved in course development and helped revise doctorate requirements in biology and biotechnology in 2014; she has championed a skill-based master’s degree program designed to provide advanced coursework and laboratory techniques applicable to the biotechnology industry, WPI said.

Rao’s mentoring extends beyond WPI: she launched a mentoring workshop through the American Society of Microbiologists annual international Conference on Candida and Candidiasis, according to the release.

As noted in the SIMB award notification, Rao is an academic scientist who is “committed to the career development of scientists at all levels of training.”

In her research, Rao studies the biology of fungal diseases, particularly those caused by Candida, a species of fungi prevalent in humans that are responsible for oral thrush, ear infections, and vaginitis. The microorganism can also cause systemic infections in immunocompromised individuals and is a leading cause of serious illnesses and death among hospitalized patients.

Treating the infections costs more than $1 billion annually, WPI said.

Before joining WPI, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Whitehead Institute. She earned a B.S. in pharmacy at the Birla Institute of Science and Technology in Pilani, an M.S. in bioscience and biotechnology and an M.S. in environmental sciences at Drexel University, and a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology at Pennsylvania State University Medical College.

Rao was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology, in January 2018.

Along with her appointment at WPI, Rao is a visiting scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and a member of the Institute for Drug Resistance at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

She is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Microbiology, the National Association of Inventors, the Genetic Society of America, the Medical Mycology Society of the Americas, the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology, and the Indus Entrepreneurs, in addition to the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology.

She is also an associate editor of the open access journal PLOS ONE, the institute said.

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