‘Nothing worth doing is easy’: FSU biomedical sciences professor wins 2025 Distinguished Teacher Award 

Florida State University Associate Professor of Biomedical Sciences Robert Tomko Jr. has been recognized with the university’s most prestigious teaching award for his dedication to fostering strong relationships with his students and building a learning community based on support, encouragement, clarity and honesty. 

Tomko, who joined the College of Medicine in 2015, is the recipient of FSU’s 2024-2025 Distinguished Teacher Award. The  annual Faculty Awards Celebration scheduled Tuesday, April 22, has been postponed to the fall semester. 

“Dr. Tomko brings a deep passion for teaching and mentoring, especially in helping students understand complex science in clear, meaningful ways,” said FSU Provost Jim Clark. “He’s been recognized many times for his outstanding teaching and research, and he’s a role model for his students and colleagues alike.” 

Faculty members who have won a University Teaching Award at least five years ago and can demonstrate ongoing outstanding teaching for the next five years are eligible for the award. Tomko, who won the University Teaching Award in 2019, will receive a $7,500 prize from the university. 

“I’m honored and humbled to be recognized,” Tomko said. “The College of Medicine and my department really appreciate the importance of teaching budding scientists and clinicians, and I was fortunate enough to have outstanding mentors in my early days that helped me to develop my teaching skills and approach.” 

Tomko, who teaches courses to medical, physician assistant and doctoral students, believes his job as an educator is to ensure that his students are prepared for the road ahead so that the College of Medicine produces “a cadre of talented and objective scientists and clinicians to carry academic discovery and medicine into the future.” 

He expects students to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, emulate professional behavior, and become proactive in their academic and professional lives. He models high standards of professionalism that will be expected of them and encourages respect and punctuality. 

“I frequently remind students that they are the product of their own efforts, and that they must attack their goals and innovate ways to be successful at times. All students know my mantra: Nothing worth doing is easy.” — Associate Professor Robert Tomko 

“I frequently remind students that they are the product of their own efforts, and that they must attack their goals and innovate ways to be successful at times,” Tomko wrote in his award application. “All students know my mantra: Nothing worth doing is easy.” 

As an instructor of Clinical Pharmacology I in the Physician Assistant program, one of Tomko’s goals is to train future clinicians to be prepared for rare cases when the typical treatment may be ineffective by using a combination of logic, deep medical knowledge, and creativity to identify alternative causes or drugs for a given set of symptoms. 

By employing a tiered system of knowledge development, Tomko compels students to make more distant logical connections that can help them identify and pharmacologically diagnose outlier conditions. He uses documented medical oddities to demonstrate that typical treatments may not always be effective and guides students to solutions through open-ended questions and gentle nudges.  

“A given set of symptoms usually indicates a specific disease or condition…until it doesn’t, and the prescribed treatment fails,” Tomko wrote. “When that happens, clinicians must be willing to second-guess their initial diagnoses and consider possible treatments that are less on the beaten path.” 

Quill Thomas, a second-year graduate student in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the College of Medicine, said Tomko always goes above and beyond for students. 

“He goes out of his way to support students in any way that they need,” Thomas said. “He’s a great mentor to his students and to other students as well. I know that he’s had one-on-one meetings with other graduate students when they needed help or guidance or advice with other things.” 

Tomka said that one of his greatest joys as a teacher is seeing a student master complicated concepts. 

“Seeing all the pieces sort of slot together and that moment of excitement when everything clicks and they can start to apply it to all the important things we’ll need to do with that is really great,” he said 

Tomko leads the Tomko Lab, which investigates the structure and function of the ubiquitin-proteasome system to aid drug discovery efforts for treating cancer and infectious diseases. His strong record of accomplishment in teaching, service, and research also earned him a Developing Scholar Award this year. This award is given to mid-career faculty at the associate professor level to support their research programs. 

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