"First-year students are still adjusting to an academic routine."

If Jérôme Waser were a German speaker, he’d likely reply “jein” – meaning “yes and no” – when asked if he’s happy to have been named 2024 best teacher in the chemistry and chemical engineering section. Waser, a professor at the Laboratory of Catalysis and Organic Synthesis (LCSO), admits to being “obviously very flattered” by the award. But he also wonders whether it “carries the risk that the quality of my teaching might start to plateau.”

A whole new language

Waser, who hails from Valais, readily admits that he isn’t a “born teacher.” Instead, he carefully plans out and adjusts his classes, which he improves year after year by listening to feedback from his students. “I run more feedback sessions than the School requires us to,” he says. “I also hold them earlier in the semester, especially when I’m delivering new material or teaching first-year students.”

Waser explains his thinking: “For most young people starting at EPFL, organic chemistry – which I teach to bachelor’s students taking advanced general chemistry classes – is a whole new language. It has much less to do with mathematics than other scientific disciplines.” Organic chemistry is the branch of science devoted to the study of carbon-containing compounds. “In my subject, there are lots of exceptions, which some students find confusing and at times frustrating,” he adds. “This makes it especially hard to teach. It’s an incredibly divisive discipline. You either love it or hate it.”

Luckily for Waser, he has a motivated – “and motivating!” – team of assistants behind him. “My classes are a bit like a machine with three parts: teacher, assistants and students,” he explains. “The whole system works only if all three parts are moving in sync.”

Beyond understanding

Waser describes teaching first-year students as a real pleasure, although he admits that “putting myself in their shoes is quite a challenge. At this stage, they’re yet to settle into an academic routine. For them, everything is open to debate. They’re particularly creative.” Waser likes to draw on this mindset for his own research.

He didn’t gain his love own for chemistry from an inspiring and stimulating teacher. “My high-school physics and biology classes were much better structured – and easier to follow – than those given by my chemistry teacher,” he recalls. It was Waser’s fascination with natural science that drove him to enroll in a bachelor’s program in chemistry, which he describes as the ideal combination: “there’s more understanding than biology and less math than physics.”

Waser was introduced to organic chemistry through an in-company internship at Lonza and then an academic internship at ETH Zurich. He enjoys the subject because it’s “about creating rather than ‘just’ understanding.” He draws a parallel with his own character: “I’m drawn to things I can see, feel and touch. If I were to divide society into two groups – doers and talkers – I’d definitely put myself in the former.”

Role models and an enabling environment

Waser got his first taste of teaching while a PhD student at ETH Zurich, where he researched novel catalytic methods for adding nitrogen to organic compounds: “I led practical sessions, tutored pharmacy students and supervised lab work.” Waser came to EPFL a few years later, after completing a postdoc at Stanford. “I was assigned my first classes after just two weeks,” he recalls.

In the 15-plus years that have passed since then, Waser has seen a steady stream of students pass through his classroom. He describes his teaching career as one characterized by “a certain stability:” the exam pass rate among his students has held firm at around 50%, for instance. “It didn’t drop even during the pandemic,” he says with pride. But he’s less happy about the persistent gender gap in science: “Although women now outnumber men in the first year, at 55%, that share falls as students move through their studies. In fact, only around 25% of postdocs are women.” Here, Waser stresses the importance of “role models” and an “enabling environment.”

No resting on laurels

Stability may be a good thing, but Waser isn’t content to rest on his laurels. In fact, he’d already started overhauling his syllabus before he heard that he’d been named best teacher in his section. “To take two examples, I’ve fleshed out the content on green chemistry and put more emphasis on the everyday applications of organic chemistry,” he explains. His classes cover a whole range of topics, from aromas and smells to food, drugs, household products and pollution. Because for Waser, plateauing simply isn’t an option.