Current instructor

Thatcher Root

/5Adjusted rating
/5RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.61/5 from 18 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

What students say

Original student reviews · all captured dates

CBE 430
Quality 1/5Difficulty 4/5
Get ready for disorganized lectures and lots of reading (if you wanna learn anything). We've noticed that he makes a mistake on the board at least once a lecture, which makes it far to learn from your notes afterwards. Least favorite prof so far.
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CBE 250
Quality 1/5Difficulty 4/5
nice person. disorganized lectures. did not know my final grade until I saw it on my student center. one of the worst experiences ever.
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CBE 250
Quality 2/5Difficulty 4/5
If you ask for help he will just reread the problem to you and get frustrated when you do not get it. He makes students question if they are good enough for the major. Not much material in the class he only does examples in class, exam problems are more of a test of problem solving skills and less of what is learned in class.
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CBE 250
Quality 3/5Difficulty 4/5
Pros: Dr. Root makes a point of remembering students names, wants to see us succeed, and is very encouraging. Cons: 1) The textbook doesn't align with the coursework as well as it could 2) Grading criteria is unclear. I had no clue what grade I'd get until I saw it on my transcript. 3) Lectures are difficult to follow and all over the place.
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CBE 250
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Lectures are a little more traditional, no slides/technology, just writing with marker on the board so be prepared to take lots of notes. Although Professor Root assigns difficult homework problems, they are doable if you apply yourself and go to discussion/office hours, which I recommend going to because getting to know him helps to ask questions!
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CBE 250
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Dr. Root was a very good professor. Although at times, he would go pretty fast through new material, he did a great job explaining calculations and the importance of what we are doing. His tests are not terrible, but he will throw in a small question regarding some minuscule topic we talked very little about in class, so be aware of that.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Thatcher Root

CBE 599 is a special problems course focused on research or independent study in Chemical and Biological Engineering.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2022–Spring 2026

Recorded teaching history

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Fall 2026CBE 489Honors in Research
Fall 2026CBE 599Special Problems
Fall 2026CBE 699Advanced Independent Studies
Fall 2026CBE 790Master's Research or Thesis
Fall 2026CBE 890Pre-dissertator's Research
Fall 2026CBE 990Thesis-research

Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.

Instructor identity & provenance
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