![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/reporter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/143\/2025\/05\/Magazine-Tim-Curran-34-681x1024.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
<\/p>\nWhen Tim Curran was in high school, he got some bad advice. His chemistry teacher said he shouldn\u2019t pursue chemistry in college because he was klutzy in the lab.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had dropped and broken a few things,\u201d Curran explains. \u201cLooking back, I just thought it was terrible advice. When you first start riding a bike, you might fall off. You should get back on. You may eventually get good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thankfully, for the thousands of students Curran has impacted over his three-decade career in higher education, he ignored his teacher. After majoring in chemistry at the College of the Holy Cross, he earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n
Upon receiving his doctorate, Curran worked as a researcher at Harvard Medical School before joining a Boston-based biotech start-up. It didn\u2019t take long, however, for him to find his way to his true calling. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a practicing Catholic, and I believe that everyone has a vocation in life, and part of that vocation is trying to help other people,\u201d Curran says. \u201cI thought that I knew quite a bit about chemistry, and I thought I\u2019d be pretty good at sharing that with other people.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1991, Curran returned to Holy Cross, joining the faculty as an assistant professor. He arrived at Trinity College in 2000 and has chaired the Chemistry Department since 2006. Curran\u2019s teaching method, which he describes as Socratic, encourages every student to contribute to discussions. Most of his classes begin by analyzing a chemical reaction and investigating how it occurred. While truth is the objective, other lessons are learned along the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also make it really important for them to know that it\u2019s OK to be wrong,\u201d Curran says. \u201cIn the quest for getting things right, very often scientists are wrong. The ability to recognize that you\u2019re wrong and change course is a really important trait to have in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curran\u2019s influence looms large for many of his former students who have gone on to pursue careers in research and medicine. Alumna Lauren Davidson Former \u201916 notes, \u201cHis mentorship shaped my character and the course of my life as he encouraged me to pursue the Fulbright research scholarship in Germany, where I still am eight years later.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former, who leads global projects aimed at removing toxic chemicals from water, honed her love for chemistry as a researcher in Curran\u2019s lab. \u201cI was motivated by his passion for the beauty of what we can create with science and how he challenged students to creatively solve puzzles to \u2018see\u2019 the molecules behind the data,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Last fall, Curran won a Career Achievement Award at Trinity\u2019s inaugural Faculty Excellence Awards. \u201cTim is so deserving of this award,\u201d says Michelle Kovarik, Gregory G. Mario \u201987 Professor of Chemistry. \u201cHe has been an active researcher who trains students in the laboratory, an exceptional teacher who inspires students to get up at 8:00 a.m. to be in his sections, and a valued member of the community providing leadership and service.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alison Draper, director of Trinity\u2019s Center for Interdisciplinary Science, adds, \u201cTim is always looking out for others\u2013\u2013his students, his colleagues, and the College in general. He has built an amazing community within the Chemistry Department of faculty and students who know and support one another and strive for excellence, especially in research.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond his knowledge and expertise, Curran brings empathy and compassion to his teaching. While these attributes have always been part of his identity, he describes a tragedy that changed the way he works with students. When he was teaching at Holy Cross, he and his wife had a son, Stephen, who passed away shortly after birth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that was a turning point in my teaching career, that awful thing,\u201d Curran says. \u201cI can\u2019t look at a student and not know that they had to have been loved so very deeply by somebody, and those people are committed to sending their child to Holy Cross or Trinity. Their parents or guardians or whoever wants them to get a good education, and I\u2019m one of the people they\u2019re depending on. I can\u2019t let them down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curran\u2019s first teaching job came as a student at Holy Cross when he volunteered to teach religious education. To prepare for it, he took a mini teaching course with a Jesuit who was overseeing the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis first words have always stuck with me,\u201d Curran says. \u201c \u2018To be a good teacher, you have to love your students. You have to be deeply committed to helping them do well.\u2019 I would say that is probably true for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Eliott Grover
\nPhoto by Nick Caito<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Tim Curran was in high school, he got some bad advice. His chemistry teacher said he shouldn\u2019t pursue chemistry in college because he was klutzy in the lab. \u201cI had dropped and broken a few things,\u201d Curran explains. \u201cLooking back, I just thought it was terrible advice. When you first start riding a bike, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"parent":3931,"menu_order":9,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4067","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n