Steven Forsey

Continuing Lecturer, Medicinal Chemistry Advisor, Undergraduate Advisor, Undergraduate Officer (Laboratory Operations)

Location: C2 391

Biography

Steven Forsey began leveraging emerging technologies as a Laboratory Instructor at the outset of his career. As early as the 1980s, he started creating lab manuals uploaded to the internet and instructional videos. He began flipping his lecture courses long before flipping the classroom became an established instructional method. He was an early adopter of in-class response systems, leading him to work with a start-up company at the time, Top Hat. These strides in leveraging mobile, immediate-feedback technologies in the classroom culminated in Dr. Forsey creating Top Hat's first online textbook (2016), designed from the outset to engage readers as active learners through a fully online, interactive reading experience.

To determine the effectiveness of each resource, he conducts class surveys to make evidence-based changes. He regularly uses senior students to conduct surveys of his courses as their 4th-year research project.

Research Interests

Chemical education
Organic chemistry

Education

2004, PhD, Earth Sciences, University of Waterloo, Canada
1988, MSc, Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Canada
1984, BSc, Honours Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Canada

Awards

2023, Outstanding Performance Award, Faculty of Science, University of Waterloo
2020, Outstanding Performance Award, Faculty of Science, University of Waterloo
2017, Top Hat Achievement Award, Top Hat dynamic courseware platform
2013, Excellence in Science Teaching Award (ESTA), Faculty of Science, University of Waterloo
2013, Outstanding Performance Award, Faculty of Science, University of Waterloo
2010, Outstanding Performance Award, Faculty of Science, University of Waterloo
2003, Chemistry Professor of the Year Award, Undergraduate Chemistry Club, University of Waterloo

Service

Science Teaching Fellow, Department of Chemistry
2023-present, 2012-2014, Chemistry Faculty Performance Review Committee
2022-present, Chemistry Executive Committee
2017-present, Waterloo Transfer Pathway
2009-present, Hiring Committee for Laboratory Instructor positions
2008-present, Medicinal Chemistry Advisor
2007-present, Undergraduate Officer (Laboratory Operations)
2006-present, Curriculum Committee and Undergraduate Affairs
2004-present, Science Undergraduate Studies Committee (SUSC)
2016-2022, Geochemistry Advisor
2020-2021, Science Undergraduate Teaching Taskforce
2016-2020, Chemistry Department Teaching Fellow
2009-2016, Excellence in Science Teaching Award Committee
2009-2015, Undergraduate Lab Equipment Committee

Professional Associations

2017-present, Top Hat Customer Advisory Board

Affiliations and Volunteer Work

2004-present, Volunteer, Science undergraduate events
1995-present, hands-on chemistry experiments, Science Open House

Teaching*

CHEM 262 - Organic Chemistry for Engineering
- Taught in 2019
CHEM 264 - Organic Chemistry 1
- Taught in 2023
CHEM 266 - Basic Organic Chemistry 1
- Taught in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
CHEM 267 - Basic Organic Chemistry 2
- Taught in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
CHEM 363 - Organic Process Chemistry
- Taught in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

Selected/Recent Publications

Forsey, Steven Philip, et al. (2023) Organic Chemistry I & II: A Live Interactive Textbook. 3rd Ed. Toronto, Ontario: Top Hat (https://tophat.com).
Al-Shamsi. M. A., Thomson N. R, Forsey, S. P., 2013. Iron based bimetallic nanoparticles to activate peroxygens. Chemical Engineering Journal 232, 555-563.
Forsey, S. P., Thomson N. R., Barker J. F., 2010. Oxidation kinetics of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by permanganate. Chemosphere 79, 628–636.