October 2026: Craig Wiegert

About Craig

Like many of us, I was first inspired to consider physics as an undergraduate major because of a great high school teacher. Ms. Clement was engaging, witty, patient, and generous with her time, and her love of physics and problem-solving was infectious. Although our high school only offered AP Physics B at the time, she met with a few of us before or after school all year long who wanted to study independently for the C-level exams. In the classroom, I try to wear my enthusiasm for physics on my sleeve in the same way Ms. Clement did.

I joined AAPT in 2004 shortly after starting my first academic job, on the advice of a couple of my physics colleagues and, strangely enough, a mentor from a completely different discipline. I went to my first AAPT national meeting that summer (CSU-Sacramento) and have attended almost every year since. Most of my classroom teaching and student mentorship practices can be traced directly back to AAPT meeting sessions and workshops, conversations I've had with other attendees, or an article in The Physics Teacher or The American Journal of Physics.

For me, the best part about teaching physics is getting glimpses inside students minds to see how they think about physics. Those glimpses come from the questions they ask as they grapple with a new concept for the first time, and from the explanations they construct to explain their thinking. It doesn't matter what course I'm teaching, how often I've taught it, or at what level; I always learn something new about physics from talking with and listening to my students.