Enriching the Health of Physics Education 2008 Winter Meeting
January 19-23, 2008
Marriott Waterfront Hotel
Baltimore, Maryland
Featured Awardees, Speakers, & Plenary Events
AWARD LECTURERS
Melba Phillips Newell Medal, Judy Franz
Oersted Medal, Mildred Dresselhaus
Richtmyer Memorial Award, Vera Rubin
GUEST LECTURERS
Paul Hewitt, Plenary I, "Developing Conceptual Physics"
Lawrence Hall, Beate Heinemann, Rudiger Schmidt, Plenary II, "Exploring the Energy Frontier at the CERN Large Hadron Collider"
Mario Livio, Plenary VI, "Symmetry: From Human Perception to the Laws of Nature"
PLENARY EVENTS
2nd Annual Symposium on Physics Education, Plenary IV, "The Many-Body Challenge"
AAPT Presidential Transfer and Award Ceremonies, Plenary VII
Monday, January 21
Plenary 1: “Developing Conceptual Physics”
Recipient of AAPT Millikan Award (1982) and Column Editor, The Physics Teacher
11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
A silver-medalist boxing champion at 17, a cartoonist, a commercial artist, a soldier during the Korean War, a uranium prospector, and a sign painter—Paul Hewitt’s passion for physics was amplified at the age of 26 while painting signs in Miami, FL. Fellow sign painter and science buff, Burl Grey, lit a fire in Hewitt that still glows today. Hewitt returned to his home in Massachusetts, applied for the GI Bill, and after three semesters at Newman Preparatory School in Boston, four years at Lowell Technological Institute, and two years at Utah State University, he began his 36-year teaching career in 1964 at City College of San Francisco (CCSF).
Five years into teaching, at the time of the first lunar landing, he wrote "Conceptual Physics." He tailored it to his nonscience physics class and was able to teach a broad span of physics by omitting numerical problem solving. By removing what most students saw as a roadblock to physics, his course attracted more than a thousand students, semester after semester, the largest elective course at CCSF.
In 1982, Hewitt’s former student David Vasquez asked if he could bring a couple of video cameras into Hewitt's class for a semester. Teaching interpretations with video excerpts provided Vasquez his master’s degree thesis in media arts. In 1989, while teaching at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hewitt was asked to teach his course in the campus TV studio as part of an experimental inter-island teaching program. DVDs of the CCSF and Hawaii lectures are popular today in classrooms well beyond San Francisco and Hawaii.
Hewitt has enjoyed guest teaching in various high schools in California and Hawaii. In addition, he has guest lectured at both the Manoa and Hilo campuses of the University of Hawaii and at the Berkeley and Santa Cruz campuses of the University of California. And for a decade he taught physics Wednesday evenings at San Francisco’s Exploratorium. He retired from full-time teaching in 2000.
Hewitt’s teaching has been recognized by AAPT’s Millikan Award (1982) and the Exploratorium’s Outstanding Educator Award (2000). Now retired, he is as busy as ever keeping his books current while enjoying the good life in Florida and California.
Back to top. Plenary II: "Exploring the Energy Frontier at the CERN Large Hadron Collider"
American Physical Society (APS) Speakers
Lawrence Hall, UC Berkeley
Beate Heinemann, UC Berkeley
Rudiger Schmidt, CERN
1:45 p.m.–3:15 p.m.
The Large Hadron Collider will reorient particle physics toward a new realm—what will the coming era look like? New elementary particles without spin, unlike anything ever seen, would solve the mystery of how a new force can spoil symmetries and create mass. Could the 20th-century discovery of anti-matter be followed by a 21st-century discovery of super-matter, leading to a whole new regime of particles and hinting at an ultimate unification of the forces? Alternatively, replications of heavier versions of electrons, quarks, and photons would imply that the four-dimensional space-time of Einstein is but a fragment of a higher dimensional world. Perhaps the LHC will discover new stable particles that comprise the dark matter of distant galaxies. We may find evidence for a microscopic world of strong gravity and black holes or for a large-scale multiverse of universes, each with different laws of physics. The LHC will test these and other speculations of the past 30 years, defining the direction of particle physics for the coming decades.
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Tuesday, January 22
Plenary III: Oersted Medal Award
Mildred Desselhaus, Institute Professor and Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering, MIT
“Expanding the Audience for Physics Education”
11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Mildred Dresselhaus was born and grew up in New York City where she received her undergraduate education at Hunter College. After a year of study at Cambridge University, and a year at Harvard University, she completed her A.M. degree at Radcliffe College/Harvard University. She completed her Ph.D. degree at the University of Chicago, with her PhD thesis in 1958 on the subject of microwave properties of superconductors in a magnetic field.
Following her doctoral studies, Dresselhaus spent two years at Cornell University as an NSF postdoctoral fellow, and then seven years as a staff member of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the Solid State Physics Division. It was during this period that she started her experimental studies on the electronic structure of graphite. She joined the MIT faculty in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1967 and the Department of Physics in 1983. During this period she and her students established the presently accepted electronic structure of graphite, and went on to study graphite intercalation compounds leading to the study of carbon nanostructures. After she was named an Institute Professor in 1985, she started her studies on fullerenes and then on carbon nanotubes (1991) and today is back working on graphene, where it all started 45 years ago.
In 2000-2001, she served as the Director of the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy. During this time, on weekends, the focus of her research work was on the Raman spectroscopy of individual single wall carbon nanotubes.
Although Dresselhaus started college with the intention of teaching school children, she has made her academic career teaching physics to talented engineering students and expanding the horizons of women in physics. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the American Philosophical Society, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, the IEEE, the Society of Women Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Carbon Society.
Dresselhaus has served as President of the American Physical Society, Treasurer of the National Academy of Sciences, and President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She is currently the Chair of the Governing Board of the American Institute of Physics. Dr. Dresselhaus has received numerous awards, including the National Medal of Science (1990). She also was the North American L'Oreal-UNESCO Laureate for Women in Science (2007) and was the recipient of the Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society (2008).
She has 24 honorary doctorates and is the co-author of four books on carbon science.
For relaxation, she is an enthusiastic chamber music player, where she plays either violin or viola, and enjoys spending time with her husband, four children, and four grandchildren.
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Plenary IV: 2nd Annual Symposium on Physics Education
1:45 p.m.-3:45 p.m.
- A strong STEM education is essential for securing knowledgeable workers and informed citizens for today’s and tomorrow’s highly technical world.
- A strong STEM education starts in our schools and depends on a large supply of highly qualified teachers.
- Physics stands at the base of STEM education.
Ensuring that we have a highly prepared and ready “workforce” of pre-college science and physics teachers requires the consistent and joint efforts of many sectors in our community: universities; school districts; corporations and foundations; and federal, state, and local governments. Each has a crucial role to play; collaboration among the various groups is critical to our collective ability to recruit, prepare, and retain teachers of physics. With a serious shortage, high attrition, and anticipated high rates of retirement, the crisis needs our immediate and creative attention.
Leaders in teacher education within the sciences from business, schools, and universities will address key questions:
- What is expected of a school district, a particular school, or and assistant principal regarding leadership, mentorship, new-teacher induction, support and in-service opportunities?
- What can universities successfully to attract students to teacher education in physics?
- Who is and should be responsible for these programs?
- What are the hallmarks of a strong district-university or state-university partnership?
- What should the role of industry in advancing teacher education?
- What are some successful examples of corporate involvement?
- What has the effect of federal legislation role of government (federal/state) in the area of teacher preparation: Funding, assessment, and certification issues?
New data will be unveiled about teacher preparation and readiness by the American Institute of Physics.
Speakers:
Michael Lach, Officer of Teaching and Learning, Chicago Public Schools
Maura Banta, Director, Transition to Teaching Program; IBM (invited)
Patrick Callahan, Executive Director, CalTeach; University of California Office of the President
Marilyn Decker, Senior Program Director, Science; Boston Public Schools (invited)
Patrick Mulvey, Statistical Research Center, American Institute of Physics
The Symposium is organized annually by AAPT.
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CANCELED: Plenary V: Richtmyer Memorial Award
Senior Fellow, Carnegie Institution of Washington D.C., Department of Terrestrial Magnetism
“Rotating Galaxies and Dark Matter”
7:30 p.m.-8:15 p.m.
Vera Rubin is an observational astronomer who has studied the motions of gas and stars in galaxies and motions of galaxies in the universe for 75% of her life. Her work was influential in discovering that most of the matter in the universe is dark. She is a graduate of Vassar College, Cornell University, and Georgetown University (PhD); George Gamow was her thesis professor.
After 10 years as a researcher and faculty member at Georgetown, she moved in 1965 to the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, where she is now a Senior Fellow.
She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. President Clinton awarded her the National Medal of Science in 1993.
Rubin has also received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Smith College, among others. In 1996, she received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (London); the previous woman to receive this medal was Caroline Herschel in 1828.
Rubin is active in encouraging and supporting women in science. Her husband and their four children are Ph.D. scientists.
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Plenary V: Melba Newell Phillips Medal Award
Judy Franz, American Physical Society (APS)
“Fostering Future Physicists”
7:30 p.m.-8:15 p.m.
Judy Franz is a condensed matter physicist and has served as the Executive Officer of APS since 1994. In her current position, she is actively involved in the education, outreach, diversity, public affairs, and international programs of the APS. Before joining APS, she was a professor of physics at Indiana University, Bloomington; West Virginia University; and the University of Alabama, Huntsville. Throughout her professional career, she has been active in trying to improve physics education. She chaired the APS Committee on education in 1983-85 and served as President of AAPT in 1990.
In addition to her work at APS, Franz is the Secretary General of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), the international organization of physicists with more than 50 member countries. She is currently a member of the Governing Board and Executive Committee of the American Institute of Physics and is a representative to the U.S. National Committee to UNESCO.
In the past, she has served on the AAAS Council, as well as advisory committees for the Department of Energy, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Office of Naval Research, and NSF.
Franz received her BA in physics from Cornell University and her MS and PhD degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is a fellow of APS, AAAS, and the American Association for Women in Science.
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Wednesday, January 23
Plenary VI: "Symmetry: From Human Perception to the Laws of Nature"
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Mario Livio is a senior astrophysicist and Head of the Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the institute that conducts the scientific program of the Hubble Space Telescope. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics from Tel Aviv University in Israel, was a professor in the Physics Department of the Technion-Israel Institute of technology from 1981 to 1991, and joined STScI in 1991. Livio has published more than 400 scientific papers and received numerous awards for research, for excellence in teaching, and for his books.
His interests span a broad range of topics in astrophysics, from cosmology to the emergence of intelligent life. He has done much fundamental work on the topic of accretion of mass onto black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs, as well as on the formation of black holes and the possibility to extract energy from them. During the past nine years his research focused on supernova explosions and their use in cosmology to determine the rate of expansion of the universe, and the nature of the "dark energy" that causes the cosmic expansion to accelerate.
In addition to his scientific interests, he is a self-proclaimed “art fanatic” who owns thousands of art books. In the past few years, he combined his passions for science and art in three popular books: "The Accelerating Universe," which appeared in 2000, "The Golden Ratio," which appeared in 2002, and "The Equation that Couldn't Be Solved," that has appeared in September 2005. The first book discusses “beauty” as an essential ingredient in fundamental theories of the universe. The second tells the story of the amazing appearances of the peculiar number 1.618... in nature, the arts, and psychology. The third book explores the role of symmetries in human perception, in science, in visual arts and music, and even in the selection of mates.
He lectures very frequently to the public and has given more than 20 full-day seminars to the public at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. During the past few years, he has given public lectures at the Hayden Planetarium in New York, The Maryland Institute College of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Berlin Planetarium, the Edinburgh Planetarium, and many more.
His book “The Golden Ratio” won him the Peano Prize (2003) and the International Pythagoras Prize (2004) as the best popular book on mathematics.
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Plenary VII: AAPT Presidential Transfer and Award Ceremonies
2 p.m.-3 p.m., Grand Ballroom VI
AAPT Distinguished Service Citations
- Michael Wolter, Ball State University, Muncie, IN
For his passion about physics teaching, supporting the learning of his students at all levels, and for his major leadership role in the induction and mentoring component of the PhysTEC project.
- Dewey Dykstra, Boise State University, Boise, ID
For his work in communicating research-based teaching so that they are accessible and useful to teachers.
- Andrew Graham, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
For his leadership in PIRA to communicating the phenomena of physics.
- Jonathan Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert, TeachSpin, Inc.
For their leadership in revitalizing the advanced laboratory.
- Tom Senior, New Trier High School, Winnetka, IL
For his leadership in PTRA and advancing the art of demonstrations.
- Chuck Stone, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO
For his leadership in promoting the World Year of Physics.
SPS Outstanding Chapter Advisor Award
Presenter: Earl Blodgett, National SPS President, faculty member of University of Wisconsin-River Falls
American Institute of Physics presents this award annually to faculty members who have excelled in the role of SPS advisor. This year, the winner of the award is Dr. Toni Sauncy, faculty member of Angelo State University.
American Institute of Physics 2007 Science Writing Award for a Children’s Author
Presenter: James H. Stith, Vice President, AIP Physics Resources
The Science Writing Award for Children is presented to Jacob Berkowitz, for his book, "Jurassic Poop: What Dinosaurs (and Others) Left Behind," Kids Can Press (2006).
Jacob Berkowitz is an author, playwright, and journalist whose writing combines a passion for science and story. He began his career as a high school English and science teacher. His first job was teaching biology in a portable with no lab equipment and 30 students, two of whom were just released from juvenile prison for violent offenses. He thought he was lucky to get the job and learned a lot about teaching and the human condition. Berkowitz has been a full-time writer for the past decade. His boutique science writing business, Quantum Writing, popularizes science for Canada’s leading research organizations. "Jurassic Poop" is his first book.Back to top.
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