Current instructor
Original student reviews · all captured dates
Prof Van Lehn was an informative and funny professor. His lectures were straightforward, although they tended to be derivation heavy with few practical examples. He provided practice problems for exams that made midterms easy to prepare for. Grading was very fair. Cons: Discussion was unhelpful and HW problems required lots of Excel/Matlab use.Rate My Professors ↗
Prof. Van Lehn is definitely the BEST professor I've ever had, super smart and also fun. Incredibly clear lectures and explanations, inspirational homework, and fair exams with similar practice problems provided. Taking thermo with Van Lehn = success + actually learning. I really enjoyed his class and hope he can be my professor for all classes!Rate My Professors ↗
He is one of the best professors I've had at UW-Madison and tied with Murphy for best in CBE. Modern class with tricky HW problems that allow derivation thermodynamic figures and datasets. Exams are extremely fair. Class is tough. I didn't know thermodynamics could be taught in such a definitive way.Rate My Professors ↗
Easily one of the best professors in the engineering department. He is extremely well liked by the students despite teaching notoriously difficult subjects. His class is challenging but the work load manageable.Rate My Professors ↗
Van Lehn is a great professor. The course is very difficult, but he does his best to actually "teach" the material. He makes his lectures very easy to participate in by having group discussion times to help with understanding. He seems like he cares about his students' learning very much.Rate My Professors ↗
Extraordinary professor and person, try to learn as much as possible from him! always oriented when teaching. He's got your back. It is not an easy course at all! at times you may wanna cry, but Van Lehn is your guy.Rate My Professors ↗
Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.
CBE 311 covers the thermodynamics of mixtures, focusing on phase equilibria and complex reaction systems.
Offering recorded · Fall 2026
Reid Van Lehn is consistently praised for his deep knowledge, clear lectures, and approachability. Reviewers highlight his engaging teaching style and fairness in grading. While the course is challenging, students feel well-supported by his resources and office hours.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2022–Spring 2026CBE 599 is a special problems course focused on research or independent study in Chemical and Biological Engineering.
Offering recorded · Fall 2026
Recent recorded grades — Spring 2022: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=1 letter grades).
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2022–Spring 2026CBE 890 is a directed study course for pre-dissertator research projects arranged with an instructor.
Offering recorded · Fall 2026
No recorded grade history
Offering recorded · Fall 2026
No recorded grade history
CHEM 980 is a graduate-level seminar where students engage in research discussions facilitated by faculty within their research group.
Offering recorded · Fall 2026
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026CHEM 990 is a research course where students conduct supervised research projects with individual faculty members.
Offering recorded · Fall 2026
No recorded grade history
Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.
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