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Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education (2013)

Chapter: Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
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C

Biographies of
Committee Members

DONALD N. LANGENBERG, Chair, is the chancellor and professor emeritus in the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland. He earned his B.S. at Iowa State University, his M.S. at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Langenberg has served as chancellor of the University System of Maryland and the University of Illinois, Chicago. He has received numerous honorary awards and degrees and has served on a number of boards. He served as chairman of the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the executive board of the National Association of the State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. He has also served on the board of directors of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the board of trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as president of the American Physical Society (APS).

SUZANNE BRAHMIA is director of the extended physics program and associate director of the Math and Science Learning Center at Rutgers—The State University of New Jersey. Dr. Brahmia has taught physics at the middle school through university levels since 1987. Prior to attending graduate school at Cornell University where she conducted research in solid-state physics, she was a Peace Corps volunteer teaching physical science in a rural French-speaking African high school (grades 7-12). She brings expertise in the areas of bridging the gender and ethnicity gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and in developing curriculum for grades 6-13. Dr. Brahmia designed and runs an innovative two-semester introductory physics course for freshman engineering majors who

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×

are underprepared in mathematics. She has published several papers on bridging the ethnicity and gender gaps in engineering based on the success of the Extended Physics program. She is also the associate director for physics at the Math and Science Learning Center, which provides academic support for undergraduates in math, physics, chemistry and biology through coordination of the student support services, and provides outreach to regional K-12 students and teachers. In this capacity, she works with physics faculty to integrate research-based teaching activities into their courses and conducts summer workshops for middle and high school science teachers. Dr. Brahmia is the co-principal investigator (co-PI) on two National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded curriculum development projects. One is for college students, the Investigative Science Learning Environment project, which she developed with Alan Van Heuvelen and Eugenia Etkina. The other curricular project is for precollege students, Physics Union Mathematics, where she develops innovative materials that promote mathematical reasoning for the middle school/early high school levels of physics. She is the co-author with Peter Lindenfeld of a textbook for college science majors titled Physics, the First Science.

JERRY P. GOLLUB (NAS) is professor of natural sciences (physics) at Haverford College and an adjunct professor at University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of the Fluid Dynamics Prize and the Award for Research in Undergraduate Institutions of the APS. A past member of the NAS Governing Council, Dr. Gollub was co-chair of the National Research Council (NRC) study for the report Learning and Understanding: Improving Advanced Study of Mathematics and Science in U.S. High Schools. He currently serves on the NRC Board on Science Education. His research is concerned with nonlinear phenomena and fluid dynamics. He is coauthor of Chaotic Dynamics: An Introduction, an undergraduate textbook. Dr. Gollub teaches science courses designed for a broad audience, including “Fluids in Nature,” “Predictability in Science,” and “Energy Options and Science Policy.” He has been provost of Haverford College and chair of its Educational Policy Committee. He served as chair of the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the APS and as a member of its executive board. In 2008-2009 he was the Leverhulme Visiting Professor at University of Cambridge and an overseas fellow of Churchill College. He has served on the editorial boards of Physical Review Letters and Physics of Fluids and has been an invited columnist for Physics Today. Dr. Gollub received his Ph.D. in experimental condensed matter physics at Harvard University in 1971.

DAVID HAMMER is a professor in education and physics and astronomy and co-director of the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach at Tufts University. Previously, he was a professor in physics and curriculum and instruction,

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×

a member of the Physics Education Research Group, and the coordinator of the Science Teaching Center at the University of Maryland. Dr. Hammer received his B.A. in physics from Princeton University, an M.A. in physics and a Ph.D. in science and mathematics education from the University of California, Berkeley. His principal focus is studying how science, mainly physics, is learned and taught across ages from young children through adults.

CHARLES HENDERSON is an associate professor at Western Michigan University (WMU), with a joint appointment between the Physics Department and the WMU Mallinson Institute for Science Education. His research within the field of physics education focuses on scaling and sustaining the use of teaching and learning ideas developed by the physics education research (PER) community. This work has involved both assessments of the current use of PER ideas by traditional physics faculty as well as the development and testing of strategies for increasing this use. Dr. Henderson is the physics education research editor for the American Journal of Physics. He has held several leadership positions within the PER community including chair of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) Committee on Research in Physics Education, president of the Michigan Section of AAPT, editor of the Proceedings of the Physics Education Research Conference, and member of Physics Education Research Leadership and Organizing Council. In spring 2010, he was a Fulbright Scholar working with the Finnish Institute for Educational Research at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

PAULA HERON is a professor of physics at the University of Washington. She received a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in physics from the University of Ottawa and a Ph.D. in theoretical condensed matter physics from the University of Western Ontario. She has broad expertise in physics education research, undergraduate education, teaching assistant preparation, and K-12 teacher education. Dr. Heron has given invited talks at conferences and in university physics departments in the United States, Canada, and Europe. She is frequently consulted by national organizations devoted to improving teacher education, such as the Physics Teacher Education Coalition and the National Task Force on Physics Teacher Education. She has served on numerous NSF review committees and on advisory boards to NSF-funded projects. She has been elected to the executive committee of the Forum on Education of the APS and has served as chair of the Committee on Research in Physics Education of AAPT. Dr. Heron is the co-founder and co-chair of the biannual conference series “Foundations and Frontiers in Physics Education Research,” which began in 2005 and has become the leading conference devoted to PER in North America. She was editor of the proceedings of the annual 2-day Physics Education Research Conference in 2005 and conference co-chair in 2010. In 2007 Dr. Heron was elected fellow of the APS. In 2008 she shared the APS Physics Education Award

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×

with Lillian C. McDermott, Peter S. Shaffer, and the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington.

THEODORE HODAPP is the director of education and diversity for the APS and project director and PI of the Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC) project. He served as a program director for NSF’s Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE), working with programs including teacher education, curriculum development, assessment, and digital libraries. Prior to this he was a professor of physics and chair of the Hamline University Physics Department. He is currently a research professor at Hamline. He served as chair of the Council on Undergraduate Research’s Division of Physics and Astronomy and served on its executive committee. He worked as a visiting scientist at the 3M corporate research laboratories and holds several patents in optical devices. He is a fellow of the APS and has published work in atomic, molecular, and optical physics, physics teacher education, and diversity issues.

MICHAEL P. MARDER is a professor of physics and associate dean for science and mathematics education at the University of Texas, Austin. He received his A.B., summa cum laude, from Cornell University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1986. His research interests are in nonlinear dynamics, and he also serves as co-director of UTeach, a program at University of Texas, Austin, for the preparation of secondary math and science teachers. UTeach serves as a model for expanding opportunities for developing science and mathematics in K-12 and is being replicated at an increasing number of universities—currently more than 20 nationwide. Dr. Marder also directs programs to help improve undergraduate instruction at the university and to increase access of underrepresented K-12 students to careers involving science and mathematics. Among his honors are the Elizabeth Shatto Massey Award for Excellence in Teach Education and Fellowships of the APS, the Exxon Education Foundation, and the Sloan Foundation.

JOSÉ P. MESTRE is professor of physics and educational psychology and associate dean for research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Since earning his Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics in 1979, his research has focused on the learning of physics, making many pioneering contributions in areas such as the acquisition and use of knowledge by experts and novices, transfer of learning, and problem solving. He was among the first to publish scholarly articles on the use of classroom polling technologies to promote active learning in large classes and is a co-developer of Minds-On Physics, an activity-based high school physics curriculum that is heavily informed by learning research. Most recently, his research has focused on applications of methodologies common in cognitive science (e.g., eye-tracking)

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×

to study learning and information processing by physics novices and experts. In 2001 he offered congressional testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Research at a hearing titled “Classrooms as Laboratories: The Science of Learning Meets the Practice of Teaching.” His past and present service includes the NRC’s Mathematical Sciences Education Board and the Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning; the College Board’s Sciences Advisory Committee, SAT Committee, and Council on Academic Affairs; the Educational Testing Service’s Visiting Committee and Graduate Research Examination Technical Advisory Committee; the editorial boards of The Physics Teacher and the Journal of the Learning Sciences; the Committee on Education of the APS; the Physics Education Research Leadership Organizing Council of AAPT; and the Expert Panel of the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering and Technology. He has published numerous research and review articles on science learning and teaching and has co-authored or co-edited 18 books.

MARY BETH MONROE is a professor of physics and the department chair in the Department of Physical Science at Southwest Texas Junior College. Ms. Monroe received her B.S. degree in physics from Sam Houston State University and her M.S. in physics with a double minor in junior college teaching and math. Ms. Monroe is a fellow of the APS and a member of AAPT, AAAS, Texas Section AAPT, Texas Section APS, Society of Physics Students, and the Texas Community College Teachers Association. She has served 12 years as a member of the AAPT Executive Board (two terms as the TYC representative to the board and a 6-year term as AAPT secretary), and she is currently on the presidential track of the AAPT (vice president, president elect, president, and past president), serving as vice president in 2012. She served as PI for “The Two Year College in the Twenty First Century (TYC21),” an NSF/DUE award to AAPT (1995-2000) and as co-PI and project director for “Strategic Programs for Innovations in Undergraduate Physics at Two Year Colleges (SPIN-UP/TYC),” an NSF/DUE-ATE award to AAPT (2002-2004). From 1991-2004, Ms. Monroe was a staff member for the Physics Enhancement Program for Two Year Colleges, funded by Texas A&M University, Lee College, and NSF. From 2000-2005, she served on the NSF National Visiting Committee for the Pennsylvania Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation. She has played a leading role in developing networks among physicists teaching in 2-year colleges that have led both to their increasing involvement in AAPT and to better teaching for the students who study physics in these schools. In 2009 Ms. Monroe was awarded the Melba Newell Phillips Medal from the AAPT in recognition of her creative leadership and dedicated service that have resulted in exceptional contributions within AAPT.

VALERIE OTERO is an associate professor of science education and is involved in several large projects throughout the University of Colorado, Boulder, and

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×

throughout the United States. She is the director of the Colorado Learning Assistant Program, the Colorado Noyce Fellowship program, and the CU-Teach program. Dr. Otero has been involved with the PER community since 1995, when she began her doctoral work in PER. She has served on the Physics Education Research Leadership Organizing Council, on the Research in Physics Education Committee for AAPT, and she currently serves on the National Task Force for Teacher Education in Physics. Her research spans from studies of physics teacher knowledge to studies of how both majors and non-majors learn various concepts in physics and the nature of science. Dr. Otero has published broadly from Science magazine to Science and Children magazine. She is co-author of the popular Physics and Everyday Thinking curriculum, used in physics departments throughout the United States. She has been invited to give hundreds of talks about physics education and physics teacher education throughout the United States and in Italy, Saudi Arabia, and Korea. Dr. Otero is the PI for more than $14 million in grants to improve mathematics and science education. As a first generation college student from a Hispanic grocery store family, she is committed to increasing access and opportunities for students of all ages to get the most out of their science education.

DAVID E. PRITCHARD attended the California Institute of Technology (B.S., 1962) and Harvard University (Ph.D., 1968), and has been with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) since 1968, where he is now the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics. His research accomplishments span modern atomic physics, including laser spectroscopy, atom-atom and atom-molecule collisions, atomic line broadening, van der Waals molecules, atom optics, atom trapping, atom interferometry, precision mass measurement, atom interferometry with Bose Einstein Condensates, and condensed matter physics using ultracold bosons and fermions. His group invented the MOT, a laser trap for cold atoms, as well as the Ioffe-Pritchard trap, both workhorses in the study of ultracold atoms and molecules. Dr. Pritchard has mentored four winners of national thesis awards and three Nobel Prize winners. He is a member of the NAS and a fellow of the American Academy for Arts and Sciences, AAAS, the APS, and the Optical Society of America (OSA). Dr. Pritchard has won the Broida and Schawlow prizes from the APS, the Max Born Award from OSA, and the IUPAP Senior Scientist Medal in Fundamental Metrology. Dr. Pritchard has a lifelong interest in teaching problem solving and is the author of A Mechanics Workbook and founded Effective Educational Technologies, which developed myCyberTutor—now sold by Pearson Education as MasteringPhysics.com, MasteringChemistry.com, etc. He was the first major coordinator in the MIT Physics Department and won a Dean’s Teaching and Advising Award and the Ethyl Murman Award for Advising at MIT (2010). His education research group is developing new pedagogy for teaching problem solving.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×

JAMES SCHAFER is a physics instructor at the Science, Mathematics and Computer Science Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. He teaches a variety of courses related to the study of physics, including thermodynamics, quantum physics, advanced placement physics, mathematical physics, and other introductory physics courses. He was the recipient of the 2011 Montgomery County Teacher of the Year award and was chosen as a finalist for the 2011 Maryland State Teacher of the Year. As an educator, his focus outside of the classroom has been on community outreach for physics and engineering. He is an event coordinator and judge for Final Frontiers, an engineering competition sponsored by the Maryland Space Business Roundtable. He has participated in a number of professional development groups focusing on physics education, including the NASA Teachers Advanced Study Institute and the University of Maryland Physics Education Research Group. He is an active member of AAPT and has served as a field tester for educational materials developed by that group. In his role as sponsor and coach for the Montgomery Blair Physics Club, he has had two students earn places on the International Physics Team, where those students earned gold and silver medals. He is the recipient of the 2010 Marian Greenblatt Excellence in Teaching Award, he is nationally board certified in physics for adolescence and young adults, and he is a multiyear recipient of the Intel Science Talent Search Teacher of Merit Award.

JACK M. WILSON is currently the president emeritus of the University of Massachusetts. Prior to that, he served as vice president for academic affairs of the University of Massachusetts System and held several positions at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, including professor of physics, dean of undergraduate education, interim provost, and founding director of the Anderson Center for Innovation in Undergraduate Education. He has served on the boards of several national organizations, including the board of directors of the American Public and Land Grant Universities, the board of directors of the Alliance for Research in Science and Technology for America, and the U.S. Council on Competitiveness. Dr. Wilson is a fellow of the APS, was awarded the Distinguished Service Citation from AAPT, and served as chair of the APS Forum on Education during 2001-2002.

HUNG-HSI WU is an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught from 1965 to 2009. He is a differential geometer by profession and has authored research papers and research monographs. He has also written three graduate-level math textbooks in Chinese. In 1992, he was moved by what he witnessed in mathematics education reform and was determined to initiate change in mathematics education. After 1996, he started to participate in the education process full-time, first as a critic and then as a member of various state and national committees. He probably played a role in changing the practices

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×

of professional development in California and the attitude of textbook publishers toward textbook writing. His latest project is the improvement of the professional development of math teachers, both pre-service and in-service. He has been engaged in in-service work since 2000, and starting with 2006, he has begun working on the pre-service professional development of high school teachers.

DEAN ZOLLMAN is the William and Joan Porter University Distinguished Professor and head of the Department of Physics at Kansas State University. He also holds the title of Distinguished University Teaching Scholar. He has focused his scholarly activities on research and development in physics education since 1972. He has received three major awards—the NSF Director’s Award for Distinguished Teacher Scholars (2004), the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Doctoral University Professor of the Year (1996), and the AAPT Robert A. Millikan Medal (1995). His present research concentrates on investigating the mental models and operations that students develop as they learn physics and how students transfer knowledge in the learning process. He also applies cutting-edge technology to the teaching physics and to providing instructional and pedagogical materials to physics teachers, particularly those teachers whose background does not include a significant amount of physics. He has twice been a Fulbright Fellow in Germany—in 1989 at Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, and in 1998 at the Institute for Science Education at the University in Kiel. In addition to numerous papers in refereed journals, Dr. Zollman is co-author of six video discs for physics teaching, the Physics InfoMall database, a textbook and Visual Quantum Mechanics project that developed interactive materials for teaching quantum physics to three different groups of students, including non-science students, science and engineering students, and students interested in biology and medicine.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×
Page 114
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×
Page 115
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×
Page 116
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×
Page 117
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×
Page 118
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×
Page 119
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×
Page 120
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographies of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2013. Adapting to a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18312.
×
Page 121
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Adapting to a Changing World was commissioned by the National Science Foundation to examine the present status of undergraduate physics education, including the state of physics education research, and, most importantly, to develop a series of recommendations for improving physics education that draws from the knowledge we have about learning and effective teaching. Our committee has endeavored to do so, with great interest and more than a little passion.

The Committee on Undergraduate Physics Education Research and Implementation was established in 2010 by the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Research Council. This report summarizes the committee's response to its statement of task, which requires the committee to produce a report that identifies the goals and challenges facing undergraduate physics education and identifies how best practices for undergraduate physics education can be implemented on a widespread and sustained basis, assess the status of physics education research (PER) and discuss how PER can assist in accomplishing the goal of improving undergraduate physics education best practices and education policy.

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