2027 Lillian McDermott Medal Awarded to Jan Landis Mader

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

College Park, MD, September 28, 2026—The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) is pleased to announce Jan Mader as the 2027 recipient of the Lillian McDermott Medal, to be awarded at the 2027 Winter Meeting. This award recognizes those who are passionate and tenacious about improving the teaching and learning of physics and have made intellectually creative contributions in this area.

Mader is specifically recognized “as a master teacher, whose written materials have long proven to be enormously useful to teachers in theAAPT community and well beyond. A key AAPT leader over many years, she has, for example, worked tirelessly with PTRA, from her first PTRA Summer Institute at Montana State. She has travelled all over the US to share her expertise and has organized and conducted workshops in Alabama, Idaho, and Texas with the Partnership Grants, NASA, and PTRA Urban and Rural Grants. Through her current leadership as Director of PTRA she is shaping the program in a new direction and with an emphasis on Teachers Teaching Teachers and local workshops for PTRAs, helping to bring this flagship AAPT program into the arms of a new generation. Jan Mader is hereby named as the recipient of the 2027 Lillian McDermott Medal.”

For 38 years Mader was a physics instructor in the Great Falls Public Schools where she has also taught physical science, chemistry, and mathematics.  Since 2018 she has been an Instructor of Physics at Great Falls College Montana State University.

She is one of the catalysts for increasing high school enrollment in physics in the United States for the past 15 years. It is no understatement to say that due to her work with the PTRA program, Prisms, and other physics education initiatives, Jan is probably the best known and most widely respected high school physics teacher in the Northwest United States. Her willingness to share her expertise has helped develop a cadre of new teachers that will continue to improve physics education in the United States.

The respect she has garnered in the physics community is of such a level that she has been recruited by Roy Unruh to help with the Prisms program revision, Larry Kirkpatrick to help with programs at Montana State, and Richard Olenick of the University of Dallas for the Mechanical Universe. Her work with the programs developed by these leaders of science education has kept Jan in the forefront of educational innovation, resulting in benefits to thousands of students throughout the US.

Her service to AAPT has included service as President of the Montana Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers, as a Physics Teaching Resource Agent (PTRA) since 2002, membership of the Committee on Physics in Pre-High School Education, Committee on Science Education for the Public, the AAPT Nominating Committee, and the Committee on Physics in High Schools which she has chaired twice. In 2019 she was elected Vice President of the AAPT Board of Directors serving as President-elect (2020), President (2021), and Past President (2022).

She was the first female receipt of the AAPT Excellence in Pre College Physics Teaching Award and co-recipient of American Physical Society (APS) 2011 Excellence in Physics Education Award given to PTRA “For providing peer-led professional development for 25 years to more than 5000 physics and physical science teachers nationwide through a network of more than 500 master teachers."  In 2014 Mader as recognized with the Homer L. Dodge Citation for Distinguished Service and as an AAPT Fellow.

About the Award
The Lillian McDermott Medal recognizes those who are passionate and tenacious about improving the teaching and learning of physics and have made intellectually creative contributions in this area. The recipient delivers an address at an AAPT Meeting and receives a monetary award, the McDermott Medal, an Award Certificate, and travel expenses to the meeting.

About AAPT
The AAPT is the premier national organization and authority on physics and physical science education with members worldwide. Our mission is to advance the greater good through physics education. We provide our members with many opportunities for professional development, communication, and student enrichment. We serve the larger community through a variety of programs and publications. AAPT was founded in 1930 and is headquartered in the American Center for Physics in College Park, Maryland.

For more information: Contact David Wolfe, Director of Communications, dwolfe@aapt.org, (301) 209-3322, (301) 209-0845 (Fax)