October 2025: Amy Furniss

About Amy

I am an Associate Teaching Professor in the Physics Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). I earned my PhD doing very high-energy astrophysics research at UCSC in 2013, after which I moved to work as a postdoc continuing my research at Stanford. This research is something I am still active in, and involves studying the most extreme processes in the Universe by working with large collaborations of scientists, all oriented toward the same goal of discovering how physics works in the most extreme environments. I currently serve as the Spokesperson for the VERITAS Collaboration, an international collaboration of around 100 scientists that uses a unique type of ground-based indirect detection method to study astrophysical gamma rays. Within my field, we are nearing a transition point where we will move to using the next generation of ground-based gamma-ray telescope, known as the Cerenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO). I look forward to using this telescope, together with undergraduate and graduate students, to research the cutting edge of our understanding of the high-energy cosmos.

Throughout my entire pre-faculty career, I actively sought out teaching opportunities, as it was one of my favorite aspects of academia. After completing a two-year postdoctoral position, I was excited to accept a tenure‐track position at California State University, East Bay in 2015, where my real education on how to be an effective and equitable educator started. I took opportunities to teach across the undergraduate physics curriculum and learned how to teach more effectively. I was lucky to work with some of the most dedicated and capable professors in the College of Science at CSUEB. The interactions and lessons learned from these great educators at CSUEB inspired me to join AAPT, giving me access to a larger community where I could share and gain insight into effective teaching strategies in an era where higher education is shifting to accommodate new technologies such as AI.

My teaching philosophy has a foundation in inclusive access and equitable practices in course structure, leading to the use of transparent modular mastery-based teaching. I work to design educational content which can be utilized in active-based learning for students, and I am rigid in the requirement that educational resources used in the classroom should be affordable. I participate in community events such as Dumb Questions night, hosted by Santa Cruz Organization for Outreach in Physics (SCOOP), to break perception barriers that physicists are fundamentally different than community members. As part of my efforts to ensure that we provide our physics students with the best resources and knowledge for success, I have developed and run annual half-day workshops at institutions across the country on topics such as Coping with Impostor Syndrome, Growth Mindset in the Era of Information Accessibility, and Implicit Bias in the Sciences.

I am the Director of the Cal‑Bridge Summer Program. Cal-Bridge has a mission to broaden participation by all Californians in STEM PhD programs, the STEM professoriate, and the STEM workforce in California and nationwide. The program has grown from 5 scholars in the first year to 67 scholars entering the program this fall, with over 350 total scholars throughout its 11 cohorts. As Summer Director, I manage the review of over 200 summer program applications each year. I coordinate the placement and financial support of scholars in UC research opportunities, external site placements at institutions such as Stanford, Caltech, SETI, Carnegie Observatories, and Penn State.

After more than 10 years as a physics professor, my favorite part is still the personal interactions I have with students and colleagues. Learning to teach even just one type of course in one kind of modality is an education in itself, and every student needs something a bit different. Our differences should no longer be dismissed – let us instead change the education system so we wield these differences for progress. As educators, we stand at the start of a system-wide paradigm shift, where questioning the historically biased practices in STEM fields is long overdue. The advancement that I have already witnessed through making changes in my own classroom and professional settings will undoubtedly remain one of my most coveted career experiences. I look forward to continuing my efforts alongside all AAPT members to create a culture that prioritizes the power of diversity through the intentional use of inclusive and equitable practices in the classroom and beyond.