With Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine’s commitment to community and smaller class size, Jane Newman, Ph.D, didn’t hesitate when she had a chance to join the school’s faculty.

Simply put, OUWB offered exactly the kind of environment in which she wanted to teach.

Newman joined the OUWB Department of Foundational Medical Studies on July 8.

She primarily is teaching first- and second-year medical students in Biomedical Foundations of Clinical Practice curriculum, with focus on key biochemical pathways and concepts of particular importance to physicians.

And her initial impressions of OUWB have been great.

“Everyone’s very friendly at OUWB,” she says. “Everyone’s been really collegial and sharing materials and helping me get started.”

“I am excited to teach OUWB medical students and learn more about medical education,” she adds.

‘A lot to learn’

Newman was born in Nashville, and lived in Ohio and Michigan until her family made a big move to China when she was 11.

The move was necessitated by Newman’s father who worked in the automotive industry.

As a youngster, Newman says she was ecstatic about the prospect of eating Chinese food all the time.

“It turns out the American version of Chinese food is very different,” she says with a laugh. “That was probably my biggest disappointment at first.”

That disappointment was quickly overshadowed, however, by the rich experiences she had in China. She attended a school for international students, which meant her classmates were from places like Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, and Europe.

“Instead of having a bunch of peers around me that were all from the same place, everyone was from literally all over the world,” she says.

Newman says the experience not only exposed her to different cultures, but helped her understand that in the U.S., “even what we were learning in school was so different.”

“I thought I was good at math when I was living in the U.S. and then I moved there and realized I had a lot to learn,” she says.

In addition to math, there also was a heavy focus on science. It would all set the stage for the next big event in her life: moving back to the U.S.

‘Always a puzzle’

Newman’s sister had attended Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech) in Houghton, Michigan — an eight-hour drive north from Oakland University, through much of the state’s Upper Peninsula.

Newman says she loved the U.P. and discovered that Lake Superior State University (Lake State) in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, offered one of two forensic chemistry programs in the state (the other is at Michigan State University).

At 18, she moved from China to Lake State because the tour she took there left a bigger positive impression on than other universities she considered.

However, she says, it didn’t take her long to realize that switching to biochemistry would open more doors in her career.

Plus, she simply liked it.

“There’s always a puzzle to solve,” says Newman. “Whether it’s something as simple as balancing equations or something more complex, like trying to figure out what’s happening with organ systems…in my mind, it’s all a chemistry problem.”

After earning a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Lake State, Newman pursued and earned a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biochemistry from Indiana University. She minored in pedagogy for microbiology.

‘Tight-knit community’

Newman says she started playing school with her younger brother before either could read or write. She was always the teacher.

As she grew older, Newman says she often found herself helping classmates any time they were struggling.

The lifelong desire to help others and love of chemistry pushed Newman to pursue a career in education.   

Her first opportunity was as an assistant professor at Adrian College, in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. The experience allowed her to work in a “smaller tight-knit community” and do research in addition to teaching.

Her research has appeared in publications such as Molecular Microbiology, Journal of Chemical Education, Nucleic Acids Research, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and Stem Cell Renewal and Cell-Cell Communication: Methods and Protocols.

Like Adrian, Newman says she was attracted to OUWB because it wasn’t too big.

“I was most interested in going someplace that focuses on education, and is a tighter-knit community,” she says. “Plus, it was appealing to me how OUWB uses a holistic approach to selecting students…looking at community involvement they had prior to medical school, for example.”

Newman and her husband have a nine-year-old rabbit named Louis — sometimes referred to as King Louis — who is house trained, and “runs around the house like a dog.”

In her free time, Newman enjoys traveling with her husband. In one recent adventure, the couple went to Iceland and took a road trip around the entire country.

She also reads about a book a week and loves playing board and card games.

In fact, gamification of learning in medical education is just one of several projects Newman says she plans to tackle at OUWB.

“Medical school is often considered too serious for fun and games,” she says. “But it’s been shown that…games are a great way to learn.”

For more information, contact Andrew Dietderich, senior marketing specialist, OUWB, at [email protected].

To request an interview, visit the OUWB Communications & Marketing webpage.

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