Dr. Sandra Weiss: 45 Years in the Classroom

Neumann University has named a laboratory classroom in honor of Dr. Sandra Weiss, who has retired after teaching clinical laboratory science for 45 years.

The Dr. Sandra M. Weiss Laboratory

In recognition of her 45 years of service to Neumann University and for her dedication to the Biology Clinical Lab Sciences Program and its students, this classroom laboratory has been generously gifted by her Family, Friends, Colleagues and Alumni and named in honor of Dr. Sandra M. Weiss, Professor and Director of Clinical Lab Sciences.

Dr. Sandra Weiss was born and raised in Delaware County and currently resides in Chadds Ford, PA, with her husband, Donald J. Weiss, Esquire, active DCBA member and Past President, 1990. Of her years in Delaware County, Dr. Weiss has spent countless hours on the third floor of the Bachmann Building in the laboratory that now bears her name. She came to Neumann in 1976 to teach medical technology and became director of the university’s Clinical Laboratory Science (CLS) Department in 1985.

Under Weiss’s leadership, the Biology/CLS program became one of Neumann’s most successful in terms of career preparation. More than half of her students have had job offers in hand before they graduate, and they have been hired by A.I. Dupont Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Christiana Medical Laboratories, Einstein Medical Center, and the University of Pennsylvania Medical Laboratories, among others. Many immediately pursue advanced degrees.

According to Weiss, clinical laboratory scientists are experts who perform highly complex testing, such as tests for COVID-19, to assist physicians in patient diagnosis and treatment. They use sophisticated biomedical instrumentation and technology to perform laboratory testing on blood and body fluids.

During her decades at Neumann, she has taught biology, immunology, human anatomy and physiology, medical science, and hematology. She has authored publications and presentations that deal with academic performance, learning style and student satisfaction; curriculum development for information literacy standards; and assessment of cognitive ability.

Weiss has won the Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award, Neumann’s Faculty Award for Growth in Scholarship, an Outstanding Research Award from the Pennsylvania Research Association, faculty development grants, and math and science grants from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Consortium for Higher Education. She also participated in a National Science Foundation grant to study teaching excellence in STEM secondary education and was selected for inclusion is the Trademark Women of Distinction 2020 Honors Edition.

Now a professor emeritus, she holds an EdD from Widener University, an MA from West Chester University, and a BS from Drexel University. •