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Ramón Barthelemy 2021 Recipient of The Doc Brown Futures Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ramón Barthelemy

College Park, Maryland, United States, February 17, 2021—AAPT has announced that the recipient of the Doc Brown Futures Award is Dr. Ramón S. Barthelemy. The Doc Brown Futures Award recognizes early-career members who demonstrate excellence in their contributions to AAPT and physics education and exhibit the potential to serve in an AAPT leadership role. The award will be presented during the 2021 Summer Meeting.

"AAPT has been a critical part of my physics education research journey and I am very honored to have been nominated by my peers for this award. This community is full of amazing people who do forward thinking work to support People of Color, LGBT+, and other underrepresented physicists." said Barthelemy. A member of AAPT since 2011, Ramón Barthelemy is an early-career physicist with a record of groundbreaking scholarship and advocacy. He has advanced the field of Physics Education Research (PER) as it pertains to gender issues and LGBT+ physicists. Through service and advocacy, he has strengthened AAPT's efforts to broaden participation in physics.

Barthelemy earned his BS in Astrophysics at Michigan State University and his MA and Ph.D. in Physics Education Research at Western Michigan University. He received a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Jyväskylä, in Finland in 2014 and a AAAS Science Policy Fellowship in 2015. He is also the recent recipient of two National Science Foundation grants to continue his work on gender in physics but also expand it to people of color in STEM and graduate program reform.

He began his position as an assistant professor of physics and astronomy (P&A) at the University of Utah in 2019. He is the first tenure track PER faculty hired in P&A at “The U” and has begun their first PER research group, the Physics Education Research Group at the University of Utah (PERU). Barthelemy also teaches courses in calculus based introductory physics and physics education.

His involvement with AAPT has included serving on the Committee on Women in Physics and organizing sessions for that committee as well as the Committee on Diversity. He was one of the early advocates for LGBT+ voices in AAPT, leading discussions and organizing the first AAPT session on the topic. He is also one of the authors of the APS report “LGBT Climate in Physics: Building an Inclusive Community.” Though this work was not done under the auspices of AAPT, the report has been a valuable resource to many AAPT members--both those whose stories were being told for the first time, and others who want to improve their departments and workplaces for LGBT colleagues and students. He was also a coauthor on the first edition of the LGBT+ Inclusivity in Physics and Astronomy best practices guide, which helps to offer actionable strategies. He also recently published a peer reviewed paper on this topic in the European Journal of Physics with more in review.

Barthelemy is a valued collaborator and can be relied on to challenge biases and inequities. He has been a leader in pushing forward Physics Education Researchers’ understanding of gender and LGBT issues in physics.

About the Award
Robert William Brown (Distinguished University and Institute Professor in the Physics Department at Case Western Reserve University) has had a rewarding five-decade career in teaching, research, and entrepreneurship. An Inaugural Fellow of the AAPT, Doc Brown is associated with a number of educational innovations, including an early use of a fiberoptics electronic educational environment (1980s), of an early use of undergraduate teaching assistants (1990s), of published PER work on both “post-exam syndrome” and its treatment, and “cycling” or structured revisiting of classroom material. His teaching led to the writing of a thousand-page MRI textbook, which has been called the "daily companion of the MRI scientist.” Doc Brown has received five regional national teaching honors on his innovations in undergraduate and graduate teaching, and in 2004 received the AAPT Excellence in Undergraduate Physics Teaching National Award. A partnership with his wife, Janet Gans Brown has taken them to highlight the importance of AAPT in a shared life and their gratitude by this endowment.

About AAPT
AAPT is the premier international organization for physics educators, physicists, and industrial scientists—with members worldwide. Dedicated to enhancing the understanding and appreciation of physics through teaching, AAPT provides awards, publications, and programs that encourage practical application of physics principles, support continuing professional development, and reward excellence in physics education. AAPT was founded in 1930 and is headquartered in the American Center for Physics in College Park, Maryland.