History of the NC State University
Department of Physics:
A Success Story
Written by:
Jasper D. Memory and Raymond E. Fornes
Table of Contents
(1894-2012)
I.
II.
Introduction
Brief Chronological Account
1. Early Days: 1894-1917
2. Departmental Status Gained and Lost: 1917-1949
3. The Nuclear Reactor Years: 1949-1960
4. Independence, Diversification, and Growth: 1960-1975
5. Advancement to National Prominence: 1975-1995
6. Further Advancement; Restructuring of the Research Base: 1995-2005
7. Shift Toward the Life Science and Increase in Academic Quality of
Graduate Students: 2005-2012
8. “The Past is Prologue”: 2012
9. Conclusion
III. Special Topics
1. Research Funding
2. Locations
A. Main Campus (North Campus)
i.
(1926-2006) Daniels Hall
ii. (1950-1964) Riddick Engineering Laboratories
iii. (1953-1962) Burlington Nuclear Laboratories
iv. (1957-2007) Bureau of Mines Building
v. (1964-2007) Cox Hall
vi. (1988-present) Dabney Hall
vii. (1989-2003) Withers Hall
viii. (1991-1996) Nelson Hall
ix. (2000-present) Harrelson Hall
x. (2004-present) Marye Anne Fox Science Teaching
Laboratory
xi. (2007-present) Riddick Hall
A. Centennial Campus
i.
(1988) Research I
ii.
(1992-present) Research II
iii.
(1994-2004) Research III
iv.
(1996-present) Research IV
v.
(2004-present) Partners III
C. Research Off-Campus
3. Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL)
4. The Science House
5. WebAssign and Advanced Instructional Systems, Inc.
6. Center for High Performance Simulations-CHiPS
7. L. H. Thomas Lecture Series
IV. Faculty
1. Tenure Track and other Major Contributing Faculty from 1894-2008,
Presented both Chronologically and Alphabetically
2. Brief Biographies of NC State Physics Faculty Members
3. Faculty Achievements and Accolades
Page 2 A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.
N.
O.
P.
Q.
Academy of Outstanding Teachers
Alexander von Humboldt Award
American Physical Society Fellows
Book Authors
Department Firsts
NC State Alumni Association Awards
Extracurricular Activities
Jesse W. Beams Award
Journal Editors
Named Professorships
National Academy of Sciences Members
National Science Foundation CAREER Awards
NC State Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence
Recipients
Other Professional Recognitions
Pegram Medal (APS) Recipients
Professional Association Officers
University Administrative Positions Held by Physics Faculty
V.
Students
1. Number of Undergraduate and Graduate Degrees Awarded by Year
2. Recipients of the PhD
A. Listed by Name, Chronologically
B. Listed by Name, Alphabetically
3. Statement from a Distinguished Alumnus
4. SAT Scores of Entering Freshmen, Showing Preeminence of the NC State
Department of Physics
5. Sigma Pi Sigma
6. Park Scholars
VI. References and Sources
VII. Appendices
1. Figures
2. Tables
Page 3 FIGURE A: Current and former department heads (from left) Richard Patty, Michael
Paesler, Christopher Gould and Lewis W. Seagondollar.
FIGURE B: The authors: Drs. Jasper D. Memory and Raymond E. Fornes.
Page 4 Preface and Acknowledgements
Physics has been taught at NC State for well over a century, and the Department
of Physics has been an increasingly important center for research and graduate education
for more than 50 years. In view of this, the preparation of a chronological account of
these efforts, going back to beginning, seemed to be timely. Moreover, the fact that the
College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, of which the Department of Physics has
been such an important part, celebrated the 50th anniversary of its establishment in 2010,
makes the timing of this retrospective particularly appropriate. The College is scheduled
to transition into the College of Sciences in 2013 by the formal addition of Biological
Sciences Department.
This work is, manifestly, a team effort. The authors wish to express deep thanks
to many, including those faculty members who responded to our offer to prepare their
own brief biographies; to David Haase, John Risley, Jerry Bernholz, Russell Philbrick,
and Wes Doggett for the sections attributed to them in the text; to Richard Patty,
Christopher Gould, Michael Paesler and John Blondin for helping make the lists of
faculty and students as accurate as they are, and for making suggestions as to major
accomplishments occurring during their terms as department heads; to Harald Ade for
providing materials related to the Departmental Graduate Program over the period 20052012; to Steve Townsend and Mary Burkey for enormous help in preparing the
manuscript to be put online; to Brand Fortner for suggestions and editing and to
Catherine Reeve for typing assistance of the first version published in 2009; and
particularly to Michael Paesler for his encouragement throughout the project. In addition,
and we express special thanks to the NC State Registrar’s Office for providing lists of
graduates, and to NC State University Archives not only for providing a rich treasury of
information but also giving permission to use several photographs appearing in the work.
Jasper D. Memory
Raymond E. Fornes
March, 2013
Page 5 I. Introduction
The NC State Department of Physics has evolved from a single individual who
also served as a professor of military science, in 1894, through a sequence of
metamorphoses that include a period in the 1940s when it was primarily a teaching
service constituent of the School of Engineering, to its current position of strength and
prominence. This has been achieved through a combination of wise and steady
leadership, good decisions at critical times, and a modicum of good fortune. The
department currently exhibits a strong balance in a variety of research areas (including
preeminence in a few) and our undergraduate majors have the highest SAT scores (on
average) in the university. It is also gratifying to note that the strength of the department
is being more and more widely recognized, in both direct and indirect ways.
Following the short narrative history below, which is arranged chronologically,
there are sections providing data on faculty, students, and accomplishments that will
substantiate the preceding claims.
II.
Brief Chronological Account
1. Early Days: 1894-1917
NC State was founded in 1889 under the presidency of Alexander Quarles
Holladay, with a faculty of five. The first faculty member with instruction in physics as
an explicitly stated duty was Lieutenant Richard Henderson, who joined the faculty in
1894, with the title professor of physics and military science. He was succeeded in 1895
by Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Hale Barnes, who had the title professor of physics,
electrical engineering, and military science. (It is perhaps worth noting for those
interested in the Civil War that the renowned Confederate General Thomas J.
“Stonewall” Jackson had an analogous position on the faculty of the Virginia Military
Institute. The connection between physics and military science was not new.) However,
in 1897, there was a separation of the departments of Physics and Military Science, and
Professor Frederick Weihe, who had a doctorate from the University of Berlin, became
professor of physics and engineering. Dr. Weihe was in turn succeeded by Professor
Ellery B. Paine, who had a master’s degree in electrical engineering, and who joined the
faculty as professor in 1904. During 1907-1908, the physics chair was held by Professor
William James Moore. In 1908, Professor William Hand Browne, a graduate of Johns
Hopkins University, took the professorship of physics and electrical engineering.
Professor Browne had a long and distinguished career at NC State. During a one-year
leave of absence for Professor Browne, the professorship was held by Mr. Henry C.
Walter. Other faculty members during this early period included John B. Derieux, Virgil
C. Pritchett, Alfred A. Dixon and Henry K. McIntyre. Also contributing to instruction
during this period were Charles W. Hewlett, Robert P. Latane, Robert McDowell, Donald
C. South and Dean W. Martin.
Throughout this section, faculty members will be identified by name but without
extensive biographical material. The section “Physics Faculty Bios” appearing later in
this history provides more detail.
Page 6 Professor Derieux, who was on the faculty from 1916 to 1947, received his
doctorate from the University of Chicago under the Nobel laureate Albert Michelson. He
studied the electric charge and also measured the photoelectric effect in mercury droplets
employing the Millikan experiment. He published the work in two papers in the Physical
Review after joining the department. He is memorialized in the department by the John
B. Derieux Lecture, established through a bequest in the will of Mrs. Derieux. He was the
first of six who have served as members of the department over the years who earned
their doctoral degrees at the University of Chicago. The others are Professors Blondin,
Nemanich, Paesler, Pearl and Sherwood.
Classes were originally taught in the first building on campus, Holladay Hall, and
the combined physics and electrical engineering program was moved to the Old Power
House (where Poe Hall now stands) in 1908, and then to Winston Hall in 1911.
2. Departmental Status Gained and Lost: 1917-1949
Professor Browne held the principal professorship in physics and electrical
engineering until 1917, at which time the two departments were separated and he became
head of the Department of Electrical Engineering. Professor Charles McGee Heck, who
had joined the combined departments in 1913 as associate professor of physics, became
head of the newly constituted Department of Physics as professor. Others who remained
with the physics department after the separation were Pritchett, Derieux, and Dixon.
A significant bit of help came to the newly formed department through the
bequest of William Kearny Carr, which provided equipment for research. In the words of
Professor Heck in 1918, “Few institutions in this part of the country can offer the
advantages that this equipment has given to the Physics Department of the State
College.”
Professor Heck served as department head through 1945, a remarkable 27 years.
The college bulletin for 1945 lists the following physics faculty: Professor J. B. Derieux;
Associate Professors J. S. Meares and F. W. Lancaster; Assistant Professors R. F.
Stainback, G. W. Bartlett, J. I. Hopkins, E. J. Brown, and J. T. Lynn; and Instructor G.
W. Charles. After Professor Heck retired as department head, Professor Meares became
acting head and served in that capacity for three years. Professors William Wilson
(1946), Arthur Waltner (1948), Arthur Menius (1949) and Clifford Beck (1949) were
added to the faculty.
Several significant changes occurred during Professor Heck’s headship. The
administrative structure of NC State evolved with some speed in the late nineteen-teens,
and the Department of Physics was briefly in a School of Arts and Sciences, along with
departments of Mathematics, English and Modern Languages. In 1923, the School of
Science and Business was formed, containing the departments of Chemistry, Biology,
Geology, Physics and Business. At this time, it became possible to obtain bachelors and
master’s degrees with a major in physics, and several such degrees were awarded in the
1920s and 1930s.
Page 7 FIGURE 1: Dr. Charles M. Heck, 1939.
The Department of Physics became part of the School of Engineering in 1937.
Degrees in physics were discontinued and the department became primarily a service
teaching unit for more than a decade.
Page 8 FIGURE 2: Dr. Rufus Snyder at the blackboard, 1951.
In 1926, Daniels Hall was constructed for the Department of Physics and
Electrical Engineering and served as the primary home for the physics department from
1926 until 1964, when the department moved to Cox Hall. However, general physics
undergraduate instructional labs remained in Daniels Hall. The space was later used to
house physics graduate students and support offices. This building was named in honor of
Josephus Daniels, who was the publisher of The News and Observer and who served in
several roles in the federal government including Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow
Wilson from 1913-1921. (The Assistant Secretary under Daniels was Franklin D.
Roosevelt.)
3. The Nuclear Reactor Years: 1949-1960
In 1949, Professor Clifford K. Beck became head, and served until Professor
Arthur C. “Buck” Menius succeeded him in 1958.
The School of Engineering’s Dean J. Harold Lampe appointed a committee in
1948 to make recommendations about future directions for the physics department, which
for several years had been primarily a teaching adjunct to the School of Engineering
(indeed, there were no graduates majoring in physics during the 1940s). The committee
concluded that a fruitful course of action might be to support the department in gaining
Page 9 strength in nuclear physics and nuclear engineering (note that this occurred during the
early post-World War II era, the beginning of the atomic age). Toward that end, the new
department head, Professor Beck (PhD, UNC-Chapel Hill), and several new faculty
members with experience in the field were added to the faculty (see below). Following
this, curricula in engineering physics and nuclear engineering were established at both
undergraduate and graduate levels. In 1952, doctoral programs in the two fields were
approved. The decision to move in this direction proved quite successful.
FIGURE 3: Dean J. Harold Lampe, 1955
Page 10 FIGURE 4: Dr. Clifford K. Beck, 1950
Professor Beck prepared a memorandum, entitled “Status and Prospectus of North
Carolina State College Physics Department,” in February 1950. In this document, he
stated:
For a number of years preceding the present one, and particularly during
the war years, the major effort of the Physics Department was directed
toward the teaching of physics, largely at the sophomore level. It was
recognized however, that physics as one of the foundation sciences upon
which most branches of engineering heavily rest, would of necessity have
to be expanded in curriculum, enriched in highly trained faculty,
Page 11 broadened in research participation and generously endowed with
apparatus in order to discharge its responsibility of service to the other
Departments. A program to achieve these requisite advancements was
launched in September 1949. Plans for reorganization of the curriculum
have been made; additions to the faculty are in the process of fulfillment;
architect’s plans for renovation and expansion are nearing completion;
$50,000 worth of new equipment is being delivered, and research projects
are being initiated.
Subsequently, the department sought and received approval to build the first
nuclear reactor to be constructed in an academic setting, and became one of the leaders in
the field of nuclear reactor research and education. This reactor, of the “water boiler”
type, was completed in 1953, and served as the focus of research and advanced education
in the department for several years.
A statement from Professor Wesley O. Doggett (PhD, University of California at
Berkeley), professor emeritus of physics and first assistant dean of the College of
Physical and Mathematical Sciences, gives flavor and detail:
It was in 1950 that the Physics Department launched the first Nuclear
Engineering program in the world and later designed and constructed the
first nuclear reactor outside of the U.S. Government Laboratory
system. Dr. Clifford Beck, head of the Physics Department, brought
several outstanding and experienced professors and scientists into the
Physics Department, such as Raymond L. Murray (PhD, University of
Tennessee); A. C. “Buck” Menius (PhD, UNC-CH); Arthur W. Waltner
(PhD, UNC-CH); Newton Underwood; Forrest W. Lancaster (PhD, Duke
University); and graduate students, Joe Lundholm, an expert in nuclear
electronics, and Harold “Hap” Lamonds.
From 1950 until 1964, space in Riddick Hall was assigned to the physics
department for the engineering physics graduate program, along with support offices, and
from 1953 to 1962, physics occupied Burlington Nuclear Laboratories, the site of the new
reactor. Nuclear physics research programs grew during the 1950s in parallel with the
development of nuclear engineering programs. To provide research space for nuclear and
atomic physics programs, the Bureau of Mines Building was transferred to physics in the
late 1950s.
Page 12 FIGURE 5: Drs. Beck, Murray, Menius, Waltner, and Underwood, 1951.
FIGURE 6: Burlington Reactor
Page 13 A report, entitled “History and Present Status of the Physics Department,” was
submitted to the NCSU Graduate School in 1960 by Professor Arthur C. “Buck” Menius,
then department head, who had succeeded Dr. Beck in 1958, and who was to become the
founding dean of the School of Physical Sciences and Applied Mathematics. In a way,
this memorandum details progress made by the department in the decade since Dr.
Beck’s memorandum. That report includes the following statements:
“In 1948 a committee of the School of Engineering was charged with a
study of the needs of the Department. A recommendation was made to
focus attention on nuclear physics and nuclear technology on the
undergraduate and graduate level. As a consequence a new head and
several professors with industrial experience in these areas were added to
the staff. New undergraduate curricula in Engineering Physics and Nuclear
Engineering were established and developed, with a gratifying growth in
student body as follows:
Engineering Physics
Nuclear Engineering
1950
1960
1950
1960
Undergraduate
0
66
51
264
Graduate
9
22
6
27
In 1952, permission was sought and granted to offer the doctorate with
majors in engineering physics and nuclear engineering. To date, the
number of PhD degrees granted in the two areas have been 8 and 6
respectively.”
4. Independence, Diversification and Growth: 1960-1975
In 1960, the School of Physical Sciences and Applied Mathematics (PSAM),
which has evolved into the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (PAMS), was
established at NCSU. The school originally consisted of the departments of Applied
Mathematics, Chemistry, Experimental Statistics and Physics. Arthur C. “Buck” Menius
was selected as the school’s first dean, a position he held for 21 years until his retirement.
Dean Menius, a large, vigorous man with imagination and a commanding
presence, was well suited for the job. During his long tenure as dean, he guided the
school to a position of prominence, often relying on the advice of such eminent physicists
as Edward Teller. He was particularly successful in obtaining financial support for the
fledgling school.
Menius’ appointment as dean left vacant the position of physics department head,
which was filled by Professor Raymond L. Murray. Murray, along with Menius and
others, had designed and built the nuclear reactor, which had been at the center of the
department’s research activities for nearly a decade. Professor Murray, in addition to his
teaching and research, had authored The Principles of Nuclear Engineering, which
became the fundamental textbook in the new field.
Page 14 FIGURE 7: Dean Buck Menius (right) and Dr. Ray Stainback Moving into Cox Hall,
1964.
A decision with profound consequences for the Department of Physics was made
when the PSAM was founded: Control and supervision of the reactor remained with the
School of Engineering, and in 1962, the Department of Nuclear Engineering was
established. At this time, Professor Murray opted to leave the Department of Physics to
take over the headship of the Department of Nuclear Engineering. The Department of
Physics then needed not only to find for itself a broader research base without the reactor,
but also to recruit a new department head. During 1962, Professor J. T. Lynn served as
acting head.
Page 15 In 1962, a physicist, Dr. Harry C. Kelly (PhD, MIT), was recruited by NC State to
be dean of the faculty, the top academic administrator of the university. In 1971, he was
named provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, the first in NC State history.
Early in his career, Dr. Kelly was chief science advisor to General Douglas MacArthur
during the occupation of Japan following World War II. Kelly was praised for his
instrumental role in assisting Japan in rebuilding its scientific enterprise following the
war.
The Department of Physics prepared a memorandum in 1960 describing
modifications in the graduate programs that would take place upon the transition from the
School of Engineering to PSAM. The fact that modification would be necessary is clear
from the listing of the research specialties of the members of the graduate faculty at that
time. Of these 11, nine (Professors Doggett, Lamonds, Lancaster, Lynn, Martin, Menius,
Murray, Underwood and Waltner) spent all or part of their research effort on problems
related to the nuclear reactor, which would remain under the control of the School of
Engineering. On the other hand, Professor Davis was occupied with more general
problems in theoretical physics. In fact, Professor Davis ultimately developed a very
strong program in general relativity and field theory. Three of his students joined the
faculty after completing their doctoral work: Marvin Moss, Gerald Katzin, and J. W.
York Jr. Of these, Moss spent several years on the faculty, then accepted a post as a highranking civilian officer at the Office of Naval Research, and eventually became provost
of UNC-Wilmington; Katzin rose to the rank of professor of physics at NCSU; and York
served on the faculty of Princeton University and then accepted an endowed
professorship at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he remained for many years. York moved for a
few years to Cornell before returning to NC State as a research professor in 2007.
It was clear, however, that the Department of Physics required diversification of
its research activities, and this was to occur in the coming years. In a major step toward
that end, Professor Willard Bennett (PhD, University of Michigan) was hired as
Burlington Professor of Physics in 1962. Professor Bennett was a distinguished
experimentalist in plasma physics and quickly initiated a vigorous research program soon
after his arrival.
After Professor Murray resigned as department head in 1962, a nationwide search
for his replacement resulted in the appointment of Professor Dudley Williams (PhD,
UNC-Chapel Hill) from Ohio State University. Professor Williams was a distinguished
spectroscopist and co-author of one of the most successful introductory physics texts of
the time, Fundamentals of Physics for Scientists and Engineers (with Shortley).
Page 16 FIGURE 8: Drs. Wesley O. Doggett (left) and Willard H. Bennett in the Plasma Lab
Professor Williams served as department head for one year, after which he
resigned to accept a position as Regents Professor of Physics at Kansas State University.
During that year, he successfully recruited four faculty members: E. R. Manring (PhD,
Ohio State University), Richard R. Patty (PhD, Ohio State University), Jasper D.
Memory (PhD, UNC-Chapel Hill), and George Parker (PhD, The University of South
Carolina).
Later, Professor Patty served as department head for a highly productive 19 years
beginning in 1976. Professor Memory replaced Professor Doggett as assistant dean of
Page 17 PSAM in 1968 and became associate dean in 1973, NC State vice-provost and dean of
the Graduate School in 1983, and UNC System vice president for research in 1986.
These new appointments provided a significant broadening of research activities.
Professors Manring and Patty initiated an experimental program in atmospheric physics
and obtained federal grant support from National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA). Professors Memory and Parker began an experimental and theoretical
investigation of a family of organic molecules using NMR techniques and secured federal
funding to support this from National Institutes of Health (NIH).
After Professor Williams left in 1964, there was another wide search for a
department head. During the interim, Professor Lynn served again as acting department
head. The courtly Professor Lynn occasionally referred to himself as “Acting Head on
Alternate Years.”
The search culminated in the appointment of Professor Lewis Worth Seagondollar
(PhD, University of Wisconsin), a nuclear physicist who had worked at the Los Alamos
National Laboratory in the early days of the atomic age and, immediately prior to his
becoming head of physics at NCSU, had been professor of physics at the University of
Kansas. During his period as department head (1965-1975), there were the following
additions to the faculty in order of hiring: Professors George Hall (PhD, University of
Virginia, theoretical solid state physics); Alvin W. Jenkins (PhD, University of Virginia,
theoretical atmospheric physics), David R. Tilley (PhD, Johns Hopkins University,
experimental nuclear physics), Fred Lado (PhD, University of Florida, theoretical
physics), Gary E. Mitchell (PhD, Florida State University, nuclear physics), Kwong T.
Chung (PhD, SUNY Buffalo, theoretical atomic physics), Jan F. Schetzina (PhD,
Pennsylvania State University, experimental solid state physics), Christopher R. Gould
(PhD, University of Pennsylvania, theoretical nuclear physics), and Charles E. Johnson
(PhD, Yale University, experimental atomic physics).
It can be seen from the variety of research specialties that the research
diversification so much sought after in the early years after the department separated
from the School of Engineering was being achieved. The department now had research
activities in atomic physics, atmospheric physics, condensed matter physics, field theory,
nuclear physics and plasma physics.
Except for a plasma physics research program and undergraduate teaching labs,
the department moved from Daniels Hall into the newly constructed General Laboratories
Building in 1964. In 1970, the building was named Cox Hall in honor of Gertrude Cox,
the founding head of the Department of Statistics. Cox was the primary home for the
department for the next 43 years. Physics occupied the ground floor and floors two to
four. The Instrumentation Shop, which reported through the department until 1989, also
moved to Cox Hall. The first floor of the building housed the departmental offices and
was shared with the Dean’s Office and the statistics departmental offices. Statistics also
occupied the fifth and sixth floors. Beginning in 1998, statistics began vacating spaces in
Cox with additional spaces assigned to physics and the remainder to the Department of
Chemistry.
Following the arrival of Gerald Lucovsky as University Professor in 1978,
additional space was added to the Cox-Dabney complex whereby materials laboratories
were constructed on the ground floor between Cox Hall and Dabney Hall (previously
referred as the “breezeway”). The laboratories were operational in 1979.
Llewellyn Hilleth Thomas (PhD, Cambridge University) joined the department in
1968 as University Professor after retiring from Columbia University. He was the
Page 18 department’s first member of the National Academy of Sciences, and was an IBM
Fellow. Some details of his highly productive career are given in a later section.
FIGURE 9: Dr. Llewellyn H. Thomas
One event of considerable importance in the development of the department came
in the form of an invitation from Duke University in the 1960s: The nuclear physics
group under Professor Henry Newsom had designed a new particle accelerator, the
cyclograaff, which gave promise of providing unprecedentedly high resolution in the
medium energy range in nuclear physics. The cyclograaff consisted of a 15 Mev
cyclotron feeding into a 15 Mev tandem Van de Graaff accelerator. It was believed that
substantial federal support for building and operating the machine could be obtained from
the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Department of Energy), but the Duke physics
Page 19 faculty was not large enough to carry out the project on its own. Duke University,
therefore, offered NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill the opportunity to be full participants,
with separate grants from the AEC (now DOE) in what was to become the Triangle
Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL). Both universities accepted the offer, and
TUNL has operated with continuous federal funding to the present and has become a
world leader in nuclear physics research in the medium energy range. Professors Tilley,
Mitchell, Gould and Seagondollar were the first NC State participants and several of the
faculty appointments since that time have been physicists who have done the larger part
of their research at TUNL.
In 1975, Professor Seagondollar left the headship of the department to return to
full-time teaching, research and service to the physics community. As noted elsewhere,
he served for many years as secretary-treasurer of the Southeastern Section of the APS
and played a large part the growth and strength of Sigma Pi Sigma, the national physics
student honorary society.
During the decade 1965-1975, significant changes had occurred. The activity at
TUNL was vigorous and showed the promise of increasing strength in the future.
Groundwork was being laid for a dramatic expansion in condensed matter physics
research. The high-quality work in field theory was complemented by theoretical efforts
in other fields. The atmospheric physics program was solidly productive. The plasma
physics group of Professor Bennett was fortified by the addition of Professor Doggett,
who had resigned from administration to return to research and teaching.
5. Advancement to National Prominence: 1975-1995
Professor Seagondollar was succeeded as head of the NC State Department of
Physics by Professor Alvin W. Jenkins, whose research work was noted earlier.
During the year that Professor Jenkins was head, five faculty members were hired.
These faculty were, in order, David G. Haase (PhD, Duke University, experimental
nuclear physics), Stephen R. Cotanch (PhD, Florida State University, high energy/nuclear
physics theory), J. Richard Mowat (PhD, University of California at Berkeley,
experimental atomic physics), John S. Risley (PhD, University of Washington,
experimental atomic physics), and Dale E. Sayers (PhD, University of Washington,
experimental condensed matter physics). All have been successful in their original
research areas, and Professors Haase and Risley have made large contributions to physics
education. Professor Haase established The Science House, a widely honored resource
for K-12 students and teachers, and Professor Risley developed a software package,
WebAssign, for online homework and homework grading, that is used worldwide.
Separate sections later in this history are devoted to these accomplishments. These
developments, and those of later additions to the faculty, have made the NCSU
Department of Physics the national leader in physics education research.
In the fall of 1976, Professor Richard R. Patty assumed the headship, a position he
held for 19 years. During this period, the department gained significantly in teaching,
research and public service and began to receive a new measure of national prominence.
Two external reviews and two National Research Council reviews of doctoral programs
made this recognition explicit.
Professor Patty consistently showed a steady balance of judgment under which
the department thrived during his long term as head. In fact, after his retirement in 1996
Page 20 as a full-time faculty member from the position, he has continued to teach every semester
to the date of this writing. Also, he chaired several search committees and later served as
acting head of the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and provided
stability for that department at a critical juncture in its history.
FIGURE 10: Dr. Richard Patty teaching in Riddick Hall, 2008
Professor Mitchell served as the physics department’s graduate administrator
during Professor Patty’s headship and helped establish and enforce consistent policies in
this area. Professor Mitchell also served throughout this period as the leader of the NC
State group in the highly successful Triangle University Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL)
Program mentioned above, which has had continuous federal support for more than 40
years.
Tenure-track faculty hired during this period are: in 1977, Marjorie Klenin (PhD,
University of Pennsylvania, condensed matter theory); in 1980, University Professor
Gerald Lucovsky (PhD, Temple University, condensed matter physics) and Michael
Paesler (PhD, University of Chicago, condensed matter physics); in 1982, Karen L.
Johnston (PhD, The University of Texas at Austin, physics education research); in 1984,
Raymond Fornes (PhD, NC State University, condensed matter physics) transferred from
the College of Textiles; in 1985, Stephen R. Reynolds (PhD, University of California at
Berkeley, astrophysics and relativity); in 1986, Jerzy Bernholc (PhD, University of Lund,
condensed matter theory); Robert J. Nemanich (PhD, University of Chicago, condensed
matter physics); in 1987, Donald C. Ellison (PhD, Catholic University of America,
astrophysics and relativity) and Chueng Ryong Ji (PhD, Korean Advanced Institute of
Page 21 Science and Technology, theoretical nuclear and particle physics); in 1992, Robert J.
Beichner (PhD, SUNY-Buffalo, physics education research), John D. Brown (PhD, The
University of Texas at Austin, astrophysics and relativity), Harold Ade (PhD, SUNYStonybrook, condensed matter physics) and David E. Aspnes (PhD, University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign, condensed matter physics); in 1993, John W. Blondin (PhD,
University of Chicago, astrophysics and relativity), Christopher M. Roland (PhD, McGill
University, condensed matter physics), Hans D. Hallen (PhD, Cornell University,
material physics and nanoscale science and technology) and John L. Hubisz (PhD, York
University and the Centre for Research in Experimental Space Science, physics education
research).
Phillip Stiles (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) came to NC State in 1993 as
provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs and as professor of physics. Professor
Stiles is a highly respected condensed matter physicist who came to NC State after being
head of the physics department, professor of engineering and the dean of the Graduate
School and of Research at Brown University.
Several trends are apparent from the chronicle of faculty members hired during
this period: Strong researchers in astrophysics and relativity were recruited; there was a
preemptive development in the rapidly growing field of research in physics education (in
fact, the department included two former presidents of the Association of Physics
Teachers: Professor Johnston, president in 1995, and Professor Hubisz, president
in2001); and, perhaps most obviously, there was a vigorous growth in condensed matter
physics, which projected the department into national prominence.
In addition to the obvious improvements in research capability and productivity
during this time, the department succeeded in making several innovations in teaching and
public service. A Tutorial Center was set up, to which students in basic physics courses
can come for individualized help from faculty and graduate students on a first-come,
first-served basis, an opportunity that has been amply used. Second, the department hired
a director of demonstrations, which has led to significant external recognition of the
department’s classroom demonstrations capability. Perhaps the most widely known of the
new approaches to science education is The Science House, which is described in more
detail in a separate section.
During this period, two members of the department made advances in the higher
administration of the NC State and the University of North Carolina system, Professors
Memory and Fornes. They will be discussed in a separate section along with other
physics faculty members, past and present, which have had administrative positions.
In 1982, the National Research Council published reviews of United States
doctoral PhD programs in a wide variety of disciplines, including physics. The NC State
physics faculty was ranked 75th overall, but perhaps more importantly, was ranked in the
top five in the country on recent improvement (this came in the sixth year of Professor
Patty’s term). This high rank in recent improvement was, in some sense, validated by the
next NRC Study, which appeared in 1993, when the faculty quality was judged to have
risen to 51st.
There were also on-site reviews of the department in 1982 and again in 1988. The
first review, in echoing the NRC ranking on departmental improvement, includes the
following assessment in its “General Remarks”:
“It is obvious that the recent past has brought substantial change to the
Department. In an earlier period it saw itself as principally a service
Page 22 Department in an institution dedicated to applications of science. Without
losing its sense of responsibility for service, it began to develop character
as an entity with a mission of its own. The recent selection of new faculty,
that brought to it a number of active, solid younger physicists, has clearly
been the result of a desire to build a vigorous research program. There is
considerable evidence that the University administration has favored the
development of the Department in this direction.
“It is significant that the Department, in deciding on research directions
for emphasis, has borne in the mind the character of the university. It has
eschewed fields of physics that are popular in many, if not most, major
Departments in favor of directions that are closer to technology even
though these may not be found often in major Departments. The
Committee views this choice as appropriate and wise, given the
circumstances (including the present climate for support of research) …
FIGURE 11: Dr. Jan Schetzina (left) and Dean Garrett Briggs (right) with
representatives from Ford Aerospace, 1983.
Several faculty members were singled out by the committee for special
recognition. These remarks include,
“Condensed Matter: Lucovsky, building on the established foundation laid
down by Schetzina, has added measurably to its strength … Sayers had
earned national recognition for his X-ray studies …
Page 23 Nuclear Physics: The research in which Mitchell has collaborated with
Bilpuch (of Duke) for a decade is unique on the world scene … “Atomic
Physics: Johnson studies the properties of one and two electron systems
using high precision techniques … Recently, Johnson won a National
Bureau of Standards Precision Measurement Award in the face of stiff
national competition … Risley conducts a vigorous experimental research
program in atomic collision physics … In addition he participates actively
in professional affairs, being General Secretary of the International
Conference on Electronic and Atomic Collisions…”
FIGURE 12: Dr. Gerry Lucovsky
By the time of the 1988 review, the success of the condensed matter program
provided a compelling argument for expansion of space in the department, and these were
met in a succession of steps over many years. Labs for physics expanded into the ground
floor of Dabney Hall for materials sciences research in space previously occupied by the
Department of Computer Science. Labs in Dabney Hall were also occupied for relatively
short periods for specialized research programs, the latter from 1989-1998 and the former
from 2005-2007. Following the move of the Department of Marine, Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences to Jordan Hall, laboratory space was assigned to physics in
Withers Hall for general physics labs and tutorial instruction. The general physics and
tutorial laboratories in Withers Hall were moved to the Marye Anne Fox Science
Teaching Laboratory in 2004. By the late 1980s, the university had established a
University Space Committee consisting of the provost (chair), the vice chancellor for
research and vice chancellor for finance and business. Following a request for expansion
of research space for physics, the department was assigned space in Nelson Hall and in
Patterson Hall. The former was intended for relocation of the Instrumentation Shop to
allow for expansion of materials sciences research programs in Cox Hall. The latter was
actually to be assigned after Nelson Hall was renovated for the new College of
Management, which freed up space in Patterson. However, instead the Instrumentation
Page 24 Shop was not moved, and that space in Nelson Hall was prepared for a newly conceived
The Science House, the K-12 initiative headed by Professor David Haase. Also, the
Patterson Hall space was used for relocation of the Department of Statistics instead of
physics expansion space, which allowed expansion of physics in Cox Hall. The Science
House moved to Research IV on Centennial Campus in 1996.
FIGURE 13: Dr. David Haase (right) and PAMS Dean Jerry Whitten (left) welcome
North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt to The Science House, 1992.
In the “Concluding Remarks” of the 1988 review, the committee wrote:
“The caliber of the present faculty, the impressive strides it has taken in
recent years, its realistic view of its situation and its obvious determination
to carry this Department forward to a higher level of distinction all suggest
strongly that it is worthy of continued and greater support by the
Administration. The effort required and the resources needed are
considerable, but the Committee sees no insuperable obstacle in the way
of substantial advance … The Committee is optimistic about the future of
the Department.”
A major recommendation of the 1982 report called for the creation of a strong
advisory committee. Patty worked effectively with the committee to develop and
implement strategic initiatives for the department.
Another external review was conducted six years later (specifically, in the dean’s
standard review of the department head), and it is instructive to compare the tone of the
Page 25 two reviews. The 1982 report stresses strong potential; the 1988 review stresses
accomplishments. Excerpts from the review follow:
“The overall conclusion is that the physics Department’s development
over the past five to ten years has been outstanding. The Department’s
rating has climbed from one back in the pack to that of emerging
leadership. Surely, Dr. Patty deserves to share in the credit for that …”
“The areas [the department has] chosen to concentrate in, and where it
shows strength, provide a good mix.”
“Because the North Carolina State University Physics Department is so
active nationally, I have had an unusual opportunity to come to know the
personnel, policies and programs of the Department. I have worked
particularly closely with John Risley, Karen Johnston, Richard Patty, and
the Worth Seagondollar. Most of these interactions have taken place in the
past five years. During this time, I have become quite impressed with the
Department of Physics and, by implications at least, quite impressed with
the leadership that Dick Patty provided that Department…”
“The Physics Department of North Carolina State University is widely
recognized as having made extraordinary improvements during Professor
Patty’s Headship. It has made a series of attractive appointments. The
faculty has rapidly increased its research funding and research output and
is generally very active professionally. It is a recognized center for
research in condensed matter physics with especial strength in
semiconductor physics and the related materials physics. To have achieved
this improvement so quickly without sacrificing commitment to teaching,
in the inadequate space, and without an increase in local support
commensurate with the increase in activities is indeed extraordinary.”
“First, I would like to say that, under Dick Patty’s leadership, the Physics
Department has become one of the leading Departments in the southeast
and is, in fact, becoming recognized on the national and international
levels. I perceive the undergraduate and graduate training to be excellent.
Over the past few years I’ve seen the quality of undergraduates entering
graduate school improve dramatically…”
“NCSU places its physics graduates in the most prestigious schools in the
United States. These include Harvard, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), Princeton, California Institute of Technology,
Berkeley and Stanford to name only a few. The placing of these students
speaks well for their training since these schools are highly selective…”
“Gary Mitchell, of NCSU, serves on the TUNL Scientific Steering
Committee which determines future directions and activities and Chris
Gould has an active collaboration with Harvard, Princeton, Duke and Los
Alamos to test questions of fundamental symmetries. This interaction has
Page 26 benefited North Carolina State University, The University of North
Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Duke University and together they have
achieved something that would be impossible without this cooperation.
Another example of NCSU’s faculty playing a prominent role in a national
facility is that of Dale Sayers. He serves as Chairman of the National
Synchrotron Source User’s Organization which handles some 120 groups
and he is on the Steering Committee for the Advanced Photon Light
Source.”
“The extent of NCSU’s commitment to research is dramatically
demonstrated by the increase in external funding over the past five years
and even more so, over the past ten years.”
Some of the specific accomplishments during the 1976-95 periods are:
1. Research funding increased from $300K to well over $4M, and five faculty
received the Alumni Association Distinguished Research Award (Professors
Lucovsky, Schetzina, Bernholc, Nemanich and Sayers);
2. The department was consistently recognized for good teaching. Ten faculty
received Outstanding Teacher Awards (Professors Schetzina, Haase, Gould,
Johnston, Doggett, Reynolds, Lado and Cobb) and one received the Alumni
Distinguished Graduate Faculty Award (Professor Mitchell);
3. Professor Patty received the Holladay Award for Excellence, the highest
award given by NC State University for faculty achievement, in 1995;
4. Of the 298 PhD degrees awarded in the history of the Department of Physics
through May 2008, 128 were awarded during this period;
5. The departmental workshops for high school teachers evolved into The
Science House under the direction of Professor Haase (a separate section of
this history describing The Science House appears later).;
6. The Physics Tutorial Center was created;
7. A director of demonstrations was hired an innovation that led to significant
external recognition for the department’s demonstrative activity.
8. The L. H. Thomas Lectureship was initiated through partnership of the
department, the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and IBM;
more than 20 Nobel laureates in physics have come to NC State to deliver one
of these lectures (their names appear tabulated in section IV, number 7);
9. The department was selected in 1990 as the site for a visit by President
George H. W. Bush and a delegation that stressed the importance of advanced
research and technology, an event that brought quite a bit of attention to the
department.
The areas of research listed for the faculty as listed in the NCSU Graduate
Catalog were the same at the beginning and at the end of this period, though departmental
emphasis changed somewhat. Nuclear physics research centered at TUNL continued to
Page 27 be strong. There was increasing emphasis on experimental condensed matter physics and
there was somewhat reduced emphasis on plasma physics, though for some years efforts
were made, unsuccessfully, to add faculty in this area, and increased efforts in theoretical
work on astrophysics and particle physics. The beginning of the currently powerful
research program in physics education research had its inception during this period,
partly through hiring and partly through increased interest in the field on the part of
several faculty members whose original research interests lay elsewhere in more
traditional fields.
FIGURE 14: President George H.W. Bush and Dr. Jan Schetzina, 1990.
6. Further Advancement to National Prominence: 1995-2005
Professor Patty was succeeded as department head by Professor Christopher R.
Gould, a distinguished nuclear physicist. The department was characterized during this
period by a change of emphasis from research areas in which funding was decreasing to
new fields that have developed vigorously, with a concurrent growth in strength and
national prominence.
The following faculty (tenure-track and research-track) were hired during this
period: in 1996, John Rowe (PhD, Brown University, nanoscience and materials); in
1997, Maria Sagui (PhD, University of Toronto, computational physics, biological
physics); in 1998, Jacqueline Krim, (PhD, University of Washington, nanoscale science
and technology); in 1999, Wenchang Lu (PhD, Fudan University); in 2000, John Kelley (
PhD, Michigan State University), Albert Young (PhD, Harvard University, nuclear
physics) and Lubas Mitas (PhD, Slovak Academy of Sciences, computational physics); in
Page 28 2001, Dean Lee (PhD, Harvard University, nuclear physics) and Gail McLaughlin (PhD,
University of California San Diego, nuclear physics); in 2002, Ruth Chabay (PhD,
University of Illinois, chemistry), Bruce Sherwood (PhD, University of Chicago, physics)
and Thomas Schaefer (PhD, University of Regensburg, nuclear physics); in 2003,
Thomas Pearl (PhD, University of Chicago, nanoscale science and technology) and Laura
Clarke (PhD, University of Oregon, nanoscale science and technology); in 2004, Robert
Golub (PhD, MIT, nuclear physics), Paul R. Huffman (PhD, Duke University, nuclear
physics) and Keith Weninger (PhD, University of California at Los Angeles, biological
physics); and in 2005, Karen Daniels, (PhD, Cornell University, nonlinear dynamics) and
Jason Bochinski (PhD, Oregon State University, nanoscience and technology).
During this period, there were several changes in direction in research. The
department maintained and strengthened its role as a research leader: federal funding was
typically the second highest on campus (led only by the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, a department with a faculty about 50 percent larger than physics),
and total funding was typically in the top 20 to 30 nationally in National Science
Foundation (NSF) surveys. The department had by then developed a very strong program
in electronic materials, had continued and expanded its very strong support in nuclear
physics, and its theory/computation sciences and physics education research groups had
emerged as prominent components. Plasma physics and atomic physics programs had
been phased out by the early 1990s as funding sources dried up; this created a temporary
lull in the expansion of on-campus experimental programs.
In late 1990s, however, a new wave of hiring in nanoscale science and in ultracold
neutron physics rebuilt strong experimental programs on campus. Nanoscale science and
technology research grew rapidly with programs in friction, nanomaterials synthesis and
characterization, and polymer science (Krim, Nemanich, Pearl, Ade and Clarke).
Computational physics grew rapidly as supercomputing capabilities, locally and
nationwide, increased. During this period, this and other work in the department was
illustrated on a number of magazine covers.
Page 29 FIGURE 15: Science (Vol. 254,
num. 5039, 20 December 1991).
Reprinted with permission from
AAAS.
FIGURE 16: Scientific American
(October 1996). Reprinted with
permission of Scientific American
(matchstick graphic by permission
of Slim Films).
Page 30 FIGURE 17: Physics Today
(September 1999). Reprinted with
permission from Physics Today.
Copyright 1999, American
Institute of Physics.
FIGURE 18: Science News (July
22, 2000). Reprinted with
permission of Science News.
Page 31 FIGURE 19: The Physics Teacher
(March 2006). Reprinted with
permission from The Physics
Teacher. Copyright 2006,
American Association of Physics
Teachers.
The main nanoscience research groups moved to the Centennial Campus in 2002
along with the computational materials group (Bernholc, Roland, Buongiorno-Nardelli,
Mitas and Lu). Biological physics emerged as a priority, first in computational work
jointly with National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) (Sagui), and
then with the first experimental hire (Weninger) working closely with the Department of
Biochemistry. New medical imaging modalities were pioneered by Sayers and a group at
UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine.
The first demonstration of a U.S.-built blue laser was carried out in the Schetzina
opto-electronics laboratory in collaboration with Cree researchers. Cree is now one of the
largest suppliers of blue lasers in the world. While the electronic materials group (Cook,
Schetzina, Lucovsky and Aspnes) had emerged among the strongest and most well
funded in the department, Cook and Schetzina had retired from the department by 2000
and early attempts to hire younger faculty in these areas were not successful.
Additionally, the hiring rate during the period 1995 to 2000 had slowed considerably.
Another review of the department took place in 1999 chaired by MIT Professor
Mildred Dresselhaus. This review followed the adoption of a “Compact Planning
Process” under the leadership of Marye Anne Fox who became NCSU chancellor in
1998. This process incorporated much more formal planning at all levels to guide
budgetary allocations in the university.
The review report recommendations highlighted the following:
“The most important near-term recommendation of the committee is that
the department, as a whole, dedicate considerable effort and attention to
the “Compact” planning process that NCSU is now undertaking. While we
appreciate that the relation between past planning exercises and
Page 32 discernible results has been small (a situation hardly unique to NCSU), we
are convinced that the new Chancellor and Provost have a very strong
commitment to the “Compact” process. This planning process will be used
to allocate resources and to determine the future focus of the institution
Moreover, we feel that the “Compact” process represents a significant
window of opportunity for the department to use its strengths and
accomplishments to change the institution's historical view of the role of
physics at NCSU and to forge a new and stronger role for physics in the
future.”
The Committee recommended specific steps,
•
•
•
“A vigorous planning process should begin immediately, which
involves all of the faculty.”
“The Department should handle this seriously on a best effort basis.”
“The Department should work with interested members of other
departments at NCSU to explore and develop opportunities for
programs that cut across interdepartmental boundaries. As a specific
example, biophysics was often cited to us as an opportunity for the
department, but much work needs to be done to develop what we
believe to be a good idea into a working plan.”
and concluded its report by stating:
“The External Review committee is of the strong opinion that while the
Physics Department has accomplished much since its founding as a
department in 1963 (sic), it is now at a critical time in its history which
will determine whether or not the department joins the first rank of physics
departments. At the beginning of our visit, the Dean told the committee
that he ‘wanted the Physics Department to develop an ambitious plan.’ We
concur and strongly urge that the faculty as a whole participate in the
‘Compact’ planning process initiated by the new Chancellor. This is a
timely opportunity for the department, and one which should be taken
seriously.”
The Review Committee also cited the need to reduce “geographic fragmentation”
and commended the department for its “welcoming and supportive environment for all
students and faculty, women and minorities included.”
The department took full advantage of the report and developed an aggressive
planning process. It decided to focus initially on hires in soft condensed matter physics
and biological physics as the electronic materials programs slowed down. This was
followed by a rapid increase in the hiring rate with several of the hires being women
faculty.
Parallel to the Compact Planning was an opportunity to leverage support for new
faculty with joint faculty positions with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The
department vigorously pursued the latter opportunity as well, which resulted in three joint
hires with ORNL over the next six years (Buongiorno-Nardelli, Huffman and Lu).
Page 33 Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) (Mitchell, Tilley, Gould,
Haase, Huffman and Young) continued its strong national leadership role and was named
one of the Department of Energy’s “Centers of Excellence” for its strengths in research
and graduate education. The discovery of neutrino mass pushes neutrino physics and
astrophysics to the forefront of nuclear and particle physics. NC State faculty and
graduate students (Gould and Markoff) participated with other TUNL faculty in the
KAMLAND experiment in Japan; complementing the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
solar neutrino results, KAMLAND is the first wholly terrestrial experiment (looking at
neutrinos from nuclear reactors) to show that neutrino flavors do indeed oscillate.
Nuclear theory grew in strength with the addition of new hires in quantum
chromodynamics (QCD) physics, Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) physics and
nuclear astrophysics (Schaefer, Lee, and McLaughlin) to complement Jefferson Lab
physics (JLAB) research activity (Cotanch and Ji). Schaefer and McLaughlin have
leadership roles in the APS Division of Nuclear Physics and served on committees to set
national nuclear physics research agendas.
With the hires of Young, Huffman and Golub, the department established the
premier ultracold neutron physics group on the world. These faculty members work at
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST), Oak Ridge National Research Laboratory (ORNL), Spallation
Neutron Source (SNS), and Institut Laue-Langevin (Grenoble) (ILL) and participated in a
joint physics-nuclear engineering project to build the world’s most intense Ultracold
Neutron (UCN) source at the NC State PULSTAR reactor. Huffman and Golub have a
leadership role in the Department of Energy’s proposed $20 million project to build an
apparatus to measure the neutron electric dipole moment with a precision two orders of
magnitude greater than previously possible.
When Chabay and Sherwood joined the faculty, the department had, with
Beichner and Risley, arguably the strongest physics education research group in the
United States. The group took national leadership in authoring new curricular materials,
developing new electronic testing methodologies, and exploring non-traditional ways of
teaching large classes in small group settings.
Groups working in electronic materials and nanosciences research continue to
occupy spaces in other locations on campus. The department vacated most of its spaces in
Cox Hall and the Bureau of Mines Building in the summer of 2007 following completion
of the Riddick renovation project.
The nuclear astrophysics group (Borkowski, Reynolds, Blondin and Ellison) took
a leadership in interpreting Supernova 1987A data, and in developing novel models to
explain observed elemental abundances in cosmic rays. Reynolds and his colleagues
recently announced the discovery of the youngest known supernova in our galaxy.
The department moved to the top position among U.S. Research I Physics
Departments in the number of women in tenure-track faculty positions (seven). Faculty
gender diversification had been a priority in all departmental planning since the mid
1990s.
Page 34 FIGURE 20: Dr. Jacqueline Krim, the first woman to achieve the rank of full professor in
the department.
An original Web-based, online homework and grading system was developed in
1996 that grew into the WebAssign project. In 2003, WebAssign spun off as the first
major startup company by a department faculty member (Risley). By the fall of 2008,
Advanced Instructional Systems (AIS), doing business as WebAssign, located on the NC
State Centennial Campus, had a workforce in excess of 60 employees.
FIGURE 21: Dr. John Risley, founder and president of WebAssign, 2008.
With university support and under the direction of Professor Beichner, a 100person Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs
(SCALE-UP) classroom was constructed in Harrelson Hall that became a national model
for integrating lab, lecture and recitation sections in a cooperative round-table working
Page 35 environment. Success rates for women and minority in engineering physics students were
significantly enhanced.
FIGURE 22: Dr. Robert Beichner in SCALE-UP classroom, 2008.
Planning was initiated for new department facilities and, in 2001; university
approval was obtained for physics to be the prime occupant of the completely renovated
Riddick Hall on North Campus. At the time, physics was in seven different buildings
(Cox, Dabney, Bureau of Mines, Withers, Daniels and RBII and RBIII on Centennial
Campus).A 1999 external review had cited connectivity and fragmentation as a
significant barrier to enhancing the graduate program and supporting the university’s goal
of being a national leader in science, technology and engineering.
Professor David Aspnes in 1998 became the first member of the department to be
elected to the National Academy of Sciences while at NC State. Professor L. H. Thomas
had been elected before joining the department (see separate section).
Page 36 FIGURE 23: Dr. David Aspnes
Two members of the department were elected president of the American
Association of Physics Teachers (Karen Johnston in 1995 and John Hubisz in 2001). Bob
Nemanich served as president of the Materials Research Society in 1997.
At the Sigma Pi Sigma Diamond Jubilee in Atlanta in 1997, Worth Seagondollar
was recognized with a service award in his name. In 2000, he was also named corecipient of the first Francis Slack service award by the Southeastern Section of the
American Physical Society.
A study of errors in middle school science texts funded by the Packard
Foundation and carried out by John Hubisz and Chris Gould was released in 2001, and
subsequently mentioned in over 200 news media, including the New York Times, USA
Today, and Readers Digest. Hubisz appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC and the Fox Report
and was interviewed on more than 50 radio stations. The Web site where the final report
was posted at NC State’s The Science House received more than 135,000 accesses.
International attention came from articles in Canadian and Mexican newspapers and from
radio stories from Tokyo and the BBC in London.
Cornelius Lanczos’s “Collected Works with Commentaries” was published in six
volumes by the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and NC State in 1998
(Editor: William Davis, Associate Editor: Wesley Doggett). The work includes side-byside translations of Lanczos papers in Hungarian, German and French.
The North Carolina chapter of the American Association of Physics Teachers was
founded by NC State physics faculty member John Hubisz.
The Science House under the leadership of David Haase grew to become one of
the premier K-12 outreach programs in the US.
Jerzy Bernholc founded CHiPS (the Center for High Performance Simulations),
the first UNC System-recognized center directed by a physics department faculty
member.
Page 37 FIGURE 24: Dr. Jerzy “Jerry” Bernholc
In 2005, after an active and fruitful term as department head, Professor Gould left
the position and assumed the position of associate dean for administration for PAMS. Of
particular note during this period were the advances made in increasing the number of
women faculty and minority graduate students; the methodology and curriculum
innovations coming from the physics education research group; the initiation of
nanotribology, biophysics, ultracold neutron, and non-linear dynamics programs; and the
emergence of a strong theory and computational programs in nuclear physics,
astrophysics and materials science.
7. Shift Toward the Life Sciences and Academic Quality of Graduate Students: 20052012
Administration
In 2005 Chris Gould stepped down as Department Head to be replaced by
Michael Paesler who at the time was the Director of Graduate Programs (DGP).
Professor Paesler was himself replaced as Head by John Blondin in 2012. Bob Beichner
served as DGP in 2005/2006 after which he assumed a position as director of STEM
programs of the university. Harald Ade stepped in as DGP in 2006 and continued in this
position at this writing in 2012. Charles Johnson, Stephen Reynolds and John Blondin
served successively as Directors of Undergraduate Programs through the period covered
by this report (2005-2012).
Professor Michael Paesler described the circumstances during his leadership as
follows:
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. The Physics
Department moved into a renovated Riddick Hall; yet dealt with years of
flat and even declining operating budgets. The Department expanded its
Page 38 faculty in exciting new directions; yet saw some professors retire and
others accept new challenges elsewhere. The GRE performance of
entering domestic graduate students improved dramatically; yet the pool
of domestic student candidates shrank nationwide. The SAT scores of
entering physics majors continued to lead all university departments, yet
record numbers of such majors stressed department resources. The
department continued to lead the college in attracting federal funding, yet
such funding became increasingly competitive. In short, the years of 2005
to 2012 were received, for good or for bad, in the superlative degree of
comparison only.
Dickensian parodies aside, the Physics Department’s Tale of Two
Buildings – Cox and Riddick – were indeed an era of contrasts during
these years. The period began couched in an era of economic upturn as
the country, state and university nurtured optimistic plans anticipating
ever-expanding resources. The optimism was not to last. Suffering
seismic shocks of a dot-com collapse of financial markets, a housing
bubble burst, and unprecedented growth of debt, crises quickly trickled
down to academic departments. The challenges faced by the department
of maintaining the standards of excellence established in earlier
administrations with shrinking support were embraced by a faculty
resolved to grow and prosper. New strategies were developed, new
collaborations formed, and new approaches tested as the faculty
vigorously met these challenges.”
External Review
The third comprehensive external departmental review occurred in the fall of
2007, two years after Paesler became head. The report issued in April 2008 established a
framework for guiding the Department over the next several years. Statements from the
committee report include the following:
“The Committee finds the Department to be rapidly gaining ground as a
major US physics department, with a number of notable successes both in
research and in the recruitment of new faculty.“
The Committee noted that the planned growth:
“… is an essential ingredient in the plan for national prominence” and that
“Biophysics is a particularly important new direction for the Department,”
and that “The NCSU Physics Department is very strong, and gaining
recognition year by year. The next phase in its growth will require the
careful, focused support of the College, and the Committee is convinced
that the results for NCSU will be extraordinary.”
The Committee also warned of challenges:
Page 39 “A solution to the start-up funding impasse must urgently be found,” and
“New strategies for recruitment of the best graduate students and for their
professional training should be explored. “
The Committee reported strengths in several subfields including:
“Astrophysics: The theoretical astrophysics group at NCSU is nationally
recognized for its expertise in high energy astrophysics. They are among
the world leaders in the calculation of the acceleration of cosmic rays, and
their work on thermal and synchrotron emission from supernova remnants
is widely used by the international community of X-ray astronomers. They
are deeply involved in the simulation of supernova explosions and in
numerical general relativity. A strength of the group is its connection with
the nuclear physics group, a connection that exists at only a few other
institutions in the country.
“Biophysics: The physics of biological systems is a challenge only
recently being addressed. A number of Physics Departments have
attempted to initiate groups in this area, but have sometimes failed to do so
because of the difficulties in coordinating with the cognate departments,
such as biology, and the need to reorient a Department more accustomed
to traditional areas of research. NCSU appears to have succeeded where
others failed by attracting two strong and active assistant professors
working in biophysics.
“Condensed Matter Experiment: The areas of low-energy physics are well
represented by a distinguished and highly collegial group of
experimentalists with research interests spanning electronic materials
(with a strong traditional emphasis in thin-film semiconductors),
nanoscale phenomena, interfacial physics, granular materials and soft
condensed matter. The experimental program is well-complemented by
the strong computational materials physics group.
“Computational Materials and Biomaterials Physics: The computational
group is one of NCSU’s strengths and is headed toward a position of
leadership in the world in simulations of nanodevices and physicochemical processes at boundaries.
“Nuclear Physics: A traditional area for NCSU, the experimental side has
been one of the three legs of the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory
and has enjoyed steady, strong support both from the DOE and the US
nuclear physics community. TUNL is now one of 5 National Centers of
Excellence, based on recognition by DOE that the mission of those 5
laboratories (TUNL, Yale, University of Washington, Texas A&M, and
MIT) has evolved from purely accelerator-based low-energy nuclear
physics into a much more diverse and modern program that often involves
high-profile experimental work at nontraditional sites (deep mines, the
Spallation Neutron Source, the South Pole, etc.). NCSU has been a leader
Page 40 in that transition and has faculty involved in fundamental neutron and
neutrino physics. The University has made excellent hires not only in the
experimental area but also in nuclear theory, and these young theorists are
rapidly gaining recognition and moving into leadership of the field,
“Research in Physics Education: NCSU has a strong group in PER,
perhaps not the ‘strongest in the world’ but certainly near the top.”
The Committee cited the department for several remarkable achievements in
advancing undergraduate teaching including the development of the matter and
interactions curriculum; the SCALE-UP environment to integrate lecture, small-group
instruction, laboratory, and teaming aspects of physics education; the WebAssign
technology; and the V-Python language.
The Committee also commended the department for it record of promoting
diversity:
“The Physics department has an outstanding record of accomplishment in
recruiting, retaining and graduating African American PhD students. In
addition, the department has what may be the highest fraction of female
faculty members of any major physics department in the US. These facts
are testaments to the collegiality and responsibility of the faculty and to
the department’s priorities and administrative policies.”
The Committee concluded its report with:
“We conclude by reaffirming the general and unanimous opinion of the
committee, that the Physics Department at NCSU is dynamic and on a
strongly upward path. The seemingly ambitious goals for national
prominence set forth not so many years ago are being achieved.”
Faculty.
Notable during this period was a shift in research interests of the faculty. In
keeping with the university’s growing emphasis on life sciences, the department
responded with a strong biophysics hiring effort. In 2005 only Keith Weninger and
Celeste Sagui would be counted as doing biophysics research, but by 2012 Robert Riehn,
Hong Wang and Shuang Fang Lim had joined the faculty. In addition computationalists
Chris Roland and Jerry Bernholc found the focus of their efforts shifting strongly towards
the life sciences. Astrophysics and Particle Astrophysics programs were likewise
invigorated with the addition of Davide Lazzati, James Kneller and Carla Frohlich.
Not all of faculty growth in these years was at the junior level as Robert Golub
and James York joined the faculty as professors. And with the retirement of Charles
Johnson, the department’s presence in Atomic Physics almost vanished but was
revitalized a few years later as John Thomas brought his active program from Duke to
NC State.
Retirements of Ruth Chabay and Bruce Sherwood (from Physics Education
Research); Gary Mitchell (from Nuclear Physics); and the departure of Robert Nemanich
Page 41 (from Nanoscience) to become Head at Arizona State resulted in valuable experience
vanishing from these sub-disciplines.
The future strength of the faculty was assured; however, as mid-career faculty
expanded their records of excellence and new hires quickly mounted strong research
programs and garnered young researcher awards. Indeed, over the period 2005-2012
five Assistant Professors received highly prestigious young investigator awards including
Karen Daniels, Dan Dougherty and Davide Lazzati (National Science Foundation
CAREER Award); James Kneller (Department of Energy CAREER Award) and Carla
Frohlich (Oak Ridge National Laboratory Powe Junior Faculty Award.)
In 2010 the department celebrated a meeting of five Heads and two college Deans
under whom they served at a gathering of retired college faculty. The photo below
shown as figure 25 features department Heads Ray Murray, Worth Seagondollar, Richard
Patty, Christopher Gould and Michael Paesler and Deans Garrett Briggs and Dan
Solomon.
FIGURE 25: Heads Seagondollar, Patty, Murray, Paesler and Gould (left to right)
standing between Deans Briggs (left rear) and Solomon (right front), 2010.
Sadly the role of emeritus and emeriti faculty shrank between 2005 and 2012 as
the department mourned the passing of Al Jenkins, Marjorie Klenin, Ed Manring,
Raymond Murray, David Martin and Hubert Owen.
Page 42 The department’s Strategic Plan and the report of the 2006 external review
committee both called for significant faculty expansion in the number of tenure-track
positions. Depending on how one counts, some growth did occur, but the optimisticgoals
outlined were not achieved. Nonetheless, the economic realities that limited this growth
did not deter the department from adding research faculty and maintaining vital active
research programs that regularly rank it among the strongest departments in the university
in external funding per faculty member. Maintaining this upward trajectory in an
economy that at this writing showed few signs of improving will remain as one of the
most daunting challenges the department faces as it moves on.
Figure 26 illustrates changes in the faculty profile over the years 2005-2012.
Each rectangle represents a faculty member placed above that member’s birth year.
Research interests are coded by color as described in the legend, and the letter R indicates
a research faculty member (i.e. non-tenure-track). For clarity, some rectangles are shifted
±1 year as indicated with an asterisk.
Shown on the left of figure 26 is the number of faculty members in each category.
While the tenure-track faculty grew only incidentally over the period shown, the addition
of research faculty greatly added to the number of faculty members actively engaged in
research. Also shown in the figure was the “graying” of the faculty. Despite the increase
in colleagues over 65 years old, the average faculty age increased only slightly – the
superannuated balanced by an increasing fraction born in the nineteen seventies.
FIGURE 26: Faculty profile as described by the so-called “Marching Histogram.”
Page 43 FIGURE 27: A picture of the Physics Department faculty at the annual retreat in
2010.
Facilities.
A watershed moment in departmental history occurred as the department moved
its primary headquarters from Cox Hall to a renovated Riddick Hall. The move began in
2006 and achieved full facility fruition in 2009 by addition of new laboratories in several
unfinished spaces in the original renovation. While this transition is recounted more
completely in the facilities discussion elsewhere in this history, the advantage of having a
large majority of departmental operations in one modern building added significantly to
the departmental efficiency, productivity and atmosphere. In addition to excellent
laboratory and classroom facilities, the department now had an excellent open hearth
feature that served as a gathering space for students and faculty as well as a gathering
space for hosting an event.
Meetings hosted – The department hosted several meetings between 2005 and
2012. These include: both the first and second meetings of the Southeast Conference for
Undergraduate Women in Physics (2009, 2011); The Thirteenth Eastern Gravity Meeting
(2010); The International Conference on Gamma Ray Bursts (2010); and the Seventyfifth Annual meeting of the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society (2008).
In addition, in 2009, Professor Cheung Ji, as President–elect of the Korean-American
Scientists and Engineers Association, hosted the US-Korea Conference on Science,
Technology and Entrepreneurship that brought several thousand Korean and KoreanAmerican scientists to the Raleigh Convention Center.
Page 44 FIGURE 28: Chancellor Woodson addresses PAMS faculty in Riddick Hearth (2010)
Departmental Awards and Recognitions: PY faculty members who became
Fellows of the American Physical Society between 2005 and 2012 include Harald Ade,
Robert Beichner, John Blondin, Ruth Chabay, David Brown, Marco BuongiornoNardelli, Robert Golub, Chueng Ji, Gail McLaughlin, Lubos Mitas, and Albert Young.
The department itself was distinguished by the American Institute of Physics as
being one of eight universities nationwide who have awarded the most PhDs to African
American physicists over the period 1998-2007 (the awards are made only to non-HBCU
institutions).
A listing of all departmental awards appears elsewhere in this history, and many
of these were received between 2005 and 2012. Among these, awards made at the
national level merit separate mention in this narrative. These nationally recognized
honors are tabulated below.
Page 45 TABLE 1: Nationally recognized honors to Faculty
Faculty Member
Award
Citation
Elected Fellow in the
American Association
for the Advancement
of Science
For his transformational contributions to X-ray
microscopy and soft x-ray scattering, and their
resulting impact on disciplines ranging from polymer
science to environmental science to meteoritics
Robert Beichner
McGraw Prize in
Education
For his work which represents the embodiment of the
transformative impact of technology on improving
education. His innovations are enabling students to
learn at their own pace and empowering teachers to
inspire and coach.
Robert Beichner
Society of College
Science Teachers &
National Science
Teachers Assn. 2010
Science Teacher of
the Year
Jerry Bernholc
Elected Fellow in the
American Association
for the Advancement
of Science
Marco BuongiornoNardelli
Elected Fellow of
Institute of Physics
Harald Ade
Jacqueline Krim
For his seminal contributions to the physics of
materials, especially C60, nanotubes and
semiconductors, and for development of methods
that enable calculation of unprecedented size.
For his personal contribution to the advancement of
physics as a discipline and a profession.
For her outstanding contribution to understanding
National Science
friction at the nanoscale and her exemplary efforts in
Foundation American
broadening participation in science through
Competitiveness
maintaining a diverse research group and through
Award
explaining her research to the lay public.
Jack Rowe
Nerken Award of the
AVS
Dale Sayers
Posthumously
Arthur H. Compton
Award
For his fundamental role in the development of
electron energy loss spectroscopy, photoemission
and their applications to surface and interface
studies.
For his invaluable contributions to the understanding
and application of x-ray absorption spectroscopy and
their resulting impact on world-leading science.
Page 46 Physics Advisory Board. Under the direction of Teaching Professor Brand
Fortner, the department created in 2008 a Physics Advisory Board – or PAB - comprised
principally of departmental alumni. Shown in figure 29 is the assemblage at the first
meeting of the PAB. Seated at the right front in the figure is the first Chairman of the
PAB, Eric Buckland (BS 1985, MS 1982).
The PAB annually convenes for a one-day meeting to discuss and consider
departmental progress. In executive session, the PAB generates an advisory document
that is then conveyed to the faculty by the Head and considered in detail in deliberations
at the annual departmental retreat.
FIGURE 29: The Physics Advisory Board.
Outreach. Departmental faculty members contributed to university outreach
efforts through a variety of venues from judging high-school science fairs to presenting
after-dinner talks in museums. A number of these were through the auspices of the
college’s Science House. Among the department’s most popular outreach effort was
“Albert and Isaac’s Amazing Adventure,” a presentation of physics demos that appealed
to a broad range of audiences. Often audience participation was a hallmark of these
presentations as seen in figure 30.
Page 47 FIGURE 30.: Middle school students enjoy a demo at “Albert and Isaac’s Amazing
Adventure.”
REU. The department’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)
completed nearly a quarter-century of continuous funding though the NSF Division of
Materials Research in 2006. In this program nearly 300 undergraduates enjoyed working
in departmental research laboratories over the years. Through aggressive recruiting,
especially at the national meeting of the National Society of Black Physicists, this
broadly diverse effort brought 34 African American students to the department for an
REU summer experience. The program was reinstituted in 2011 with funding thought the
NSF physics directorate in a program directed by John Blondin.
.
Research. For the majority of the seven years 2005-2012, physics ranked first
among the PAMS departments in external grant funding for research. In fact, the
department has typically ranked second only to Electrical and Computer Engineering in
the university as a whole for the past two decades; however, the changing research profile
of the department over the period 2005-2012 resulted in fewer experimental programs
(e.g. those in condensed matter physics) that require large budgets for equipment to be
housed in the department and more in other experimental programs with costly
equipment needs (e.g. biophysics). In addition faculty in computational areas were
highly success in securing much of their computing needs from national centers and other
theoretically oriented faculty prospered on budgets that did not require large outlays for
hardware.
A full discussion of the nature of the research undertaken in the years 2005-2012
is beyond the scope of this narrative. Nonetheless, with some fear of omitting important
contributions, the following bulleted list highlights just a few of the faculty’s research
accomplishments over this period and demonstrates the breadth of faculty interests.
Page 48 • NC State professors Stephen Reynolds and Kazimierz Borkowski and
collaborators have discovered the remains of the most recently identified
supernova in our Milky Way Galaxy -- only about 100 years old at the time of
discovery, displacing the 330-year-old remnant Cassiopeia A, the record-holder
for the preceding 50 years.
• Marco Buongiorno-Nardelli, Dan Dougherty and Jack Rowe were among eight
principal investigators involved with the creation of the NC State Center for
Molecular Spintronics. The Center was launched to investigate fundamental
principles underlying the optimal use of organic molecules for spin transport and
manipulation through new synthesis, advanced characterization, and state-of-theart modeling.
• Jacqueline Krim, collaborating with Duke University colleagues, examined the
phenomenon of the collapse of a stacked pile of fruit. This work on friction and
granular materials was featured in Physics Today.
• A three dimensional video animation of a gamma ray burst explosion, produced
by Davide Lazzati, appeared on the website of the magazine Nature. This movie
is from a hydrodynamical simulation generated by Professor Lazzati of a
relativistic jet of gamma rays propagating through a massive compact progenitor
star.
• Karen Daniels performed experiments on diverse materials to quantify the
universal shape made by pairs of interacting cracks. She proposed a geometric
model to understand how it arises. The work identifies an easily-measured shape
parameter which could serve as a diagnostic tool for identifying the stress state
under which cracks were formed in natural systems where history and dynamics
are inaccessible.
• Professor emeritus Fred Lado and European colleagues presented work on the
effects of patch size and number within a simple model of patchy colloids. The
work was cited by the Journal of Chemical Physics as being among "...the most
innovative and influential articles in the field of chemical physics."
• Dean Lee and German colleagues related a first-principles verification of a
prediction made more than 50 years ago. Long believed to be true, the so-called
Hoyle State hypothesized that when three helium nuclei come together in a star
they do not form the Carbon-12 common in our world. The work uses effective
field theory to prove the existence of the Hoyle State from first principles.
• Robert Riehn and collaborators from McGill, UCLA and Princeton reported on
experiments that demonstrate that double stranded DNA collapses in the presence
of an AC electric field at frequencies of a few hundred Hertz. The work was cited
by American Physical Society as “exceptional research.”
• Jerzy Bernholc and Miloslave Hodak directed work that led to a major
development in the study of Parkinson’s disease. The work involved computer
simulations that determined the cause of a change in morphology of a molecule
associated with Parkinson’s and other degenerative diseases.
Page 49 • Harald Ade reported on an innovative x-ray technique has given researchers new
insight into how organic polymers can be used in printable electronics such as
transistors and solar cells. Their discoveries may lead to cheaper, more efficient
printable electronic devices.
• John Blondin with colleagues at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, used the
CRAY X1E supercomputer to develop a three-dimensional model of a pulsar's
creation, and in the process discovered that conventional wisdom concerning the
formation of these celestial objects wasn't correct.
• Michael Paesler and Gerald Lucovsky led an effort that used x-ray absorption to
develop a microscopic model of local atomic bonding in optically-switched
alloys. The work led to a deeper understanding of phase-change materials used in
computer memories.
Instruction. The external review of 2006 encouraged the department to broaden
its curricular offerings. Following their suggestions, a task force headed by Chueng Ji
focused on both undergraduate and graduate courses and developed a plan for curricular
enrichment. The modus operandi developed by the task force for the department
involved identifying courses that strategically fit into a strengthened curriculum and
offered these first as special topics courses. The following courses were offered as
special topics in anticipation of their ultimately being added to the suite of permanent
courses offered by the department.
Graduate courses:
• Non-linear optics
• Biophysics
• Computational Physics of Materials
• Introduction to Magnetic Materials
• Geometric Methods
Undergraduate Courses
• Music and Science of Sound
• Problem Solving in Physics
Several courses were created and became firmly established as regular course
offerings of the department. These included the following courses.
Graduate courses:
• Surfaces and Interfaces
• Matter & Interactions for High School Teachers
• A Second Course in Statistical Mechanics
Undergraduate Courses
• Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
• Laboratory Skills
Distance Learning. The department effort to offer on-line courses began with
Physics for Scientists and Engineers (PY205 and 208), a two-semester sequence offered
Page 50 principally to engineering students. Richard Mowat developed a syllabus for the courses
that included homework and labs. As the university’s distance education office, DELTA
(Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications), began centralized
administration of university distance learning, the course began to be taught through the
auspices of DELTA.
In addition to Physics for Scientists and Engineers, under DELTA administration
other courses were developed and taught. These included the following:
• Matter and Interaction for High School Teachers – developed by Bruce
Sherwood and taught by him, Keith Weninger and Laura Clarke.
• Conceptual Physics – developed and taught by Senior Lecturer Keith Warren.
• College Physics – developed and taught by Lecturer Bill Robinson.
• Cold Neutron Physics – developed and taught by Bob Golub and Paul Huffman.
Departmental Endowment. For the majority of recent years, legislative support
of NC State’s programs has either stayed flat or decreased. While some of the resultant
shortfall has been ameliorated by modest tuition increases, much more emphasis has been
placed on private contributions to the department. Between 2005 and 2012, through the
generosity of faculty and friends, several Awards, Fellowships and Scholarships were
created.
Of particular note are two named Distinguished Professorships created during this
period. These were made possible through the generosity of the faculty members for
whom they are named. They include the Brand Fortner Distinguished Professorship and
the John Risley Distinguished Professorship.
Others created and endowed include:
Gary E. Mitchell Graduate Award
Dale E. Sayers Graduate Fellowship
Ronald, Anne, and Dave Tilley Physics Scholarship.
Those Created and are building to endowment at this writing include:
Clarence Hugh Noah Scholarship
Lucille Joyner Seely Scholarship
John S. and Dellaine A. Risley Endowment
Page 51 FIGURE 31: Dr. Brand Fortner
FIGURE 32: John Risley, Dellaine Risley, Michael Paesler and Dan Solomon in
2011 at the announcement of the John Risley Distinguished Professorship
Page 52 FIGURE 33: Dr. Gary Mitchell
FIGURE 34: Dr. Dale E. Sayers
Undergraduate Program. The number of physics majors at North Carolina State
University more than doubled over the previous decade, with the number of bachelor
degrees rising from an average of 12.4 per year in the 1990’s to 26.6 per year in the five
years from 2007 to 2012. Physics students performed very well in the classroom
(average of 3.5 GPA for graduating seniors in years 2007-2012) and in the laboratory (11
peer-reviewed publications with student authors same period). They moved into top
Page 53 graduate programs and found career-minded employment in a variety of industries. The
increasingly large graduating classes (see figure 35) pushed the limits of the Sayers
Auditorium where commencements were held during this period (Riddick 301) to
necessitate a simulcast of graduation festivities in the Riddick Hearth.
.
FIGURE 35: 2010 Graduation festivities
Departmental growth and improvement resulted in part from faculty willing to
engage in transformation through continuous assessment and improvement. The faculty
listened to the students with attentive advising, surveys, student participation on
committees, and conducted exit interviews of graduating seniors.
Faculty-led
improvements included changes to the curriculum, more support of SPS and student
activities, more undergraduate research opportunities, visible recognition of student
achievement, improved communication with a semi-annual newsletter and an
Undergraduate Physics Handbook (copied from UW), and peer tutoring for physics
majors.
Physics instruction at NC State was driven by continual assessment (exit
interviews, program data such as grades, retention, graduation rates), with the goal of
maintaining a rigorous program that prepared students for top graduate programs or
successful careers in industry. Changes to the curriculum included the timing of courses
in order to remove a ‘junior wall’ that had proved detrimental to many students, offering
of a one-credit problem-solving class, the creation of new sophomore ‘tools’ courses in
laboratory
skills
(http://aps.org/units/fed/newsletters/spring2012/haase.cfm)
and
computational physics, and the addition of an extra course to enhance the mathematical
skills of at-risk students and bridge the gap between our sophomore modern physics class
and senior quantum mechanics.
The department integrated writing instruction throughout the curriculum,
culminating in PRL-style research papers describing students’ work in senior lab. It also
implemented a homework rubric that progressively trains majors to write complete
solutions to homework problems, beginning in their first-semester physics class.
Page 54 With eight women among its tenure-track faculty, the department continued to be
proactive in the recruitment and mentoring of women in physics. The physics faculty
hosted a women-in-physics lunch each semester, inviting not only physics majors but
many other undergraduate women who are interested in physics. Departmental faculty
and students hosted the Southeast Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics in
2011 at NCSU. With a state population that of 22% African-American during this period,
the Department was particularly aware of the under-representation of black physicists.
Working closely with the College Office of Multicultural Affairs, the department sought
to enhance the recruitment, retention, and graduation of African Americans and other
minority students who were traditionally underrepresented. The department hosted an
REU program in computational astrophysics targeting a diverse population of young
physics students, with the goal of attracting more underrepresented students into physics.
The department became proactive in providing a teacher certification for a
traditional physics major. In a recent collaboration with the College of Education at NC
State, a 5-year program leading to a Bachelor of Arts in Physics and a Master of Arts in
Teaching, including state certification, was created. The curriculum was designed so that
students could add the education track as late as their junior year.
The department had a long history of undergraduate research and continued to
explore ways of getting even more students involved. This promotion of undergraduate
research began with an information session at New Student Orientation in the summer
before enrollment, and continued throughout the students first year with talks at SPS
meetings, a research “speed-dating” event to break the ice between shy physics majors
and faculty, a campus-wide Undergraduate Research Symposium, and the Department’s
McCormick Symposium. NC State University runs a grant program for student research,
provided some 120 students with one-year awards with physics majors averaging 12
awards per year during this period that often included several freshmen.
The Department initiated hosting an annual alumni dinner to give an opportunity
for alumni to advise our undergraduates on life after a bachelor degree. This event
provided physics students with valuable career advice as well as networking
opportunities.
Undergraduate Research. For many years the department strove to provide
research opportunities to undergraduates. For non-NCSU students, this has typically
been through the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for
Undergraduates (or REU) program. For research undertaken by NC State physics majors,
programs were administered individually by faculty members. The sampling below of
some of the awards garnered by students in these programs between 2005 and 2012
serves, however, as a measure of the excellence of the offerings available.
• Kasey Phillips a Park Scholar from Charlotte, performed experiments on the
size-segregation of granular materials under shear. She was awarded an NSF
Graduate Fellowship and pursued a PhD in Applied Physics at Harvard.
• Chris Pope presented his research on gravitational accretion as a representative
of NC State at the Atlantic Coast Conference “Meeting of the Minds.”.
Page 55 • Carlos Ortiz studied the jamming of sub-micron particles in microfluidic
channels. He was awarded an NSF Graduate Fellowship and continued his
graduate work in the Physics Department here at NC State.
• Mary Burkey and Blake Sharrits received the Chambliss Student Achievement
Award from the American Astronomical Society. They won two of the three
national awards for undergraduate research presentation at the AAS meeting in
Miami in 2010. Mary presented her work on X-ray emission from
circumstellar material in Kepler's supernova remnant, and Blake presented his
work on computer simulations of the superhump phenomenon in accreting
binary stars.
• Melissa Fender was awarded the PAMS graduating senior research award for
her work on the topology of particle packing on curved surfaces.
• Michael Collins won the university-wide research poster competition for his
work on Helium Diffusion, Solubility and Permeability Measurements of
nEDM Experiment Construction Materials.
Physics undergraduates regularly win NC State Office of Undergraduate Research award
grants. A sampling of these students and their projects include the following:
Adam Keith - Local Measurement of Granular Size Segregation Rates
Erik Skau - Engineering Omniphobic Surfaces from Beaded Nanofibers
Barak Schmookler - Isotopic Purification of 4-He using Cryogenic Techniques
Mary Burkey -An Analysis of the Circumstellar Medium in Kepler’s SNR
Kevin Barkett -Measuring Ca Spectrum from Supernova in Circumstellar Medium
Kate Foco -Effects of Particle Shape on Granular Stick-Slip Events
Andrew Hewitt -Carrier Injection in Organic Semiconductor Spin Valve Materials
Christopher Blackwell -Gamma Ray Burst Afterglow Light curves
Hamilton Whittle - Neutrino Flavor Mixing Modeled by Quantum Oscillation
.Mark Schillaci - Fractures in Soft Materials
Andy Hewitt - Growth and STM of Organic Single Crystal Semiconductors
Chengxiang Bi - Nanoscale surface roughness of nanoscale graphene films
Cody Melton - Resolving the SASI Debate
Lew Barrett - Modeling Image Potential States in STM Spectroscopy Experiments
Kelby Stockstill - Exciton and Electron Dynamics in ZnO Dye Sensitized Solar Cells
Kevin Blackwell - Surfactant Visualization with Fluorescence and Laser Profiling
Phillip Phipps - Tidal hypothesis and the Superhump Phenomenon
Andrew Barrette - Polar Scanning Modes for Virtual Retinal Display Applications
Garrett Pangle - Laser Extinction in Fog
Chris Blackwell - Failed Gamma-Ray Bursts involving stalled relativistic jets
Alex Mauney - The Effects of Supernova Turbulence on Detected Neutrino Signal
James Rowland - N-Dimensional Analogue for Neutrino Oscillations
Hamilton Whittle - Coupled Coherent State in Quantum Mechanics
Oindree Banerjee - Quantification of Fenton Chemistry
David Moreau - Near Field Photoemission
Page 56 The department’s spring undergraduate physics research event was expanded into
the McCormick Symposium, a celebration of student excellence. In addition to a short
research talk by a graduating senior, the event included the Sigma Pi Sigma inductions,
student awards, and a research poster session with cash awards for the three best posters.
Working with the College Development Office the department created endowed senior
awards for research, scholarship, and leadership presented at the McCormick
Symposium. A poster session of the Symposium is shown in figure 11, where these and
other awards were presented.
FIGURE 36: The McCormick Symposium poster session.
Director of Graduate Programs Harald Ade has made a concerted effort to expand
the program in size and to increase the caliber of graduate students. By obtaining new
resources at the department, college and university levels, he was able to increase the
attractiveness of offers to select incoming students. The department also created a
graduate admissions committee headed by Ade with members Davide Lazzati, Albert
Young and Dean Lee. With this increased manpower, more extensive contact with
prospective students was realized.
One clearly measureable metric that demonstrated the academic quality of the
graduate program increased during this period is the Graduate Record Exam (or GRE)
scores of the incoming classes. They rose dramatically over the period covered by this
report (2005-2012). The physics subject GRE scores of students who applied, students
who were admitted, and students who ultimately enrolled are plotted in figure 38. As the
program becomes more selective all three of these measures grew monotonically over the
last five years shown in the figure.
Page 57 Admission Statistics Ph.D.: 1996-2012
180
Total
US applicants
Admitted
Enrolled
# of students
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
F96
F98
F00
F02
F04
F06
F08
F10
F12
FIGURE 37:Admission statistics for Physics Graduate Students 1996 - 2012.
Admission Yields
1.00
0.90
US
Yield
INT
Yield
Admission Yield
0.80
0.70
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10
0.00
F96
F98
F00
F02
F04
F06
F08
F10
F12
From 1996-2012
FIGURE 38: GRE subject scores for applied, admitted and enrolled physics students.
Page 58 The Departmental Exam was changed in 2006 in several ways. While the exam
continued to encompass classical mechanics, electricity & magnetism, and quantum
mechanics, at the graduate level only the first semester course material was covered in
the exam. After successful completion of the written departmental exam, however,
students also were required to successfully pass the second semester courses in these
disciplines. The exam time was also changed to the first week in January in an attempt to
allow students to begin their research programs sooner. These changes resulted in a
dramatically reduced time to PhD candidacy as shown in Figure 39. In 2011, for
example, the entire entering class completed their departmental exam after one semester
in residency.
US PhD students
passing written Exam ination
3rd year
2nd year
1st Year
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
F00 F01 F02 F03 F04 F05 F06 F07 F08 F09 F10 F11
Entering Class Year
FIGURE 39. Time to completion of departmental exam for incoming graduate classes.
The department now had students among the highest academic quality in its 125
year history at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and an upward trend that was
expected to continue.
8.
The Past is Prologue.
A change in the departmental administration occurred when John Blondin assumed the
headship on January 1, 2012. David Brown was appointed as Director of
Undergraduate Programs and Harald Ade continued as Direct of Graduate Programs.
Page 59 FIGURE 40: John Blondin
Figure 41: Work of John Blondin and his group shown on the June 1, 2012
cover of Science with an accompanying article.
Page 60 FIGURE. 42 Work of Harald Ade and his group on cover of Advance Materials with
Accompanying Article in January 2013
The department had a very productive year with a number of highlights. One
new faculty member, Shuang Fang Lim, was hired during this period and three new
searches began. A number of the faculty received noted achievements including the
following:
•
•
•
•
•
Recognition of Professor Stephen Reynold a recipient of the UNC Board of
Governor's Award for Excellence in Teaching,
The naming of Thomas M. Schaefer as Distinguished Professor of Physics,
Election of Christopher M. Roland as Fellow of the American Physical
Society,
Selection of Davide Lazzati for a Career Award Recipient from the National
Science Foundation, and
Reception by Dr. Richard Mowat, Professor Emeritus of Physics, of the
College's Garrett Briggs Faculty Career Achievement Award.
Sadly the department mourned the passing of Emeritus Professors Jan Schetzina
and Richard Mowat during the year.
In the spring of 2012 the University announced the College of Physical and
Mathematical Sciences (PAMS) was to be replaced in July 2013 with a broader, more
comprehensive College of Sciences including the physical and chemical sciences, the
mathematical and statistical sciences, earth system sciences, and the biological sciences.
The move was intended to align NC State with national best practices that combine
related physical and life sciences departments in one college, allowing for better
Page 61 interdisciplinary educational opportunities, improved research collaboration and more
efficient support operations. The emergence of a strong biophysics group in the Physics
Department in the preceding decade before appeared to be both timely and insightful, and
along with the other strengths of the department, positioned it well both externally and
within the University.
9.
Conclusion.
The development of the NC State Department of Physics is a success story. One
consideration that has made drawing this conclusion easy is the abundance of objective
evidence that supports it: regular external reviews; data on external support for research;
SAT scores of physics majors; the strong credentials of entering graduate students,
recognition from external constituencies of the department’s contributions in research,
teaching, and service; and awards to individual faculty members. How did this success
come about? There have been several crucial points in the department’s history. After a
good start at the end of the 19th century, the department was awarding degrees, at both
bachelor’s and master’s levels, in the 1920s. It then sank to a state in the 1930s and 1940s
where it was nothing more than a teaching auxiliary in the School of Engineering. If one
had to choose a single event as the turning point in the department’s history, it would
almost certainly be the decision of the School of Engineering’s Dean J. Harold Lampe
and others in the late 1940s that a technologically oriented institution such as NC State
could not afford to have a weak physics department during the Atomic Age. A significant
number of new faculty members with research experience in nuclear physics were hired,
and the first academic nuclear reactor in the world was subsequently funded for NC State.
In the 1950s, nuclear reactor research flourished, and the department began awarding
degrees at all levels, including doctorates. Another critical point was reached in 1960,
when the Department of Physics became part of the newly formed School of Physical
Sciences and Applied Mathematics (now the College of Physical and Mathematical
Sciences). The nuclear reactor and the research associated with it remained in the School
of Engineering, so a new research base was needed for the department. The story of the
years since then has been the evolutionary development of that base and the concomitant
growth in national and international reputation. Details of this story have been elaborated
in the body of this document. Areas of specialization have been developed, and over the
years some have thrived, only to see their federal grant support dwindle but to be quickly
replaced with funding in other specialties. Some have thrived continuously. An important
reason for the department’s current stature is the astuteness of several department heads,
advised by wise and collegial faculty, in observing the ebb and flow of these research
areas, and then acting on those observations intelligently.
In any event, the current state of physics at NC State is strong, and there appears
every reason to believe that it will continue to strengthen
III. Special Topics
1. External Research Funding
The real origin for the department developing a major research program occurred
shortly after World War II, as described earlier in this document (Section II.3: The
Page 62 Nuclear Reactor Years: 1950-1960). Clifford Beck’s proposal to the Atomic Energy
Commission (AEC) in 1949 was the first proposal to the federal government from the
department. NC State received notification on April 13, 1951, that the proposal was
approved and $5,000 was awarded for the design of the reactor. Parallel to the review of
Beck’s proposal were successful efforts to secure funding from the North Carolina
legislature and a contribution from Burlington Mills Textiles Foundation for the project.
In a letter dated March 27, 1951, College of Engineering Dean J. Harold Lampe wrote
Chancellor Harrelson summarizing the funding situation for the project. His letter called
for an action plan for the construction of the Nuclear Engineering Building, including the
Nuclear Reactor. He further stated:
“The financial situation at the present time seems to be as follows:
approximately $200,000 from the Burlington Mills, and in the neighborhood
of $95,000 from state appropriations or $295,000 to complete the building
and the Reactor. Estimates of construction costs indicate that the building
will cost approximately $300,000 and the Reactor $125,000. These values
include all engineering and architectural fees.”
Construction of Burlington Nuclear Laboratories was completed in 1953.
By the time the School of Physical Science and Applied Mathematics was formed
in 1960, the department was growing its graduate program and recruiting faculty who
were to become successful in securing grant support for their programs. By the end of the
1960s, the annual grant support was approximately $250,000, with the bulk of the
research support for plasma physics (Bennett and Doggett), nuclear physics
(Seagondollar and TUNL colleagues, and Waltner), atmospheric physics (Manring and
Patty), and nuclear magnetic resonance (Memory and Parker).
Following the end of the nation’s project to land a man on the moon and bring
him back safely in 1969, a drop occurred over the next few years in research grant
funding to the department. By 1975, the annual grant expenditures in the department had
fallen to approximately $125,000 per year. However, the department and the school made
a renewed commitment to turn this around. The department had already hired in the late
1960s faculty members who later would become remarkably successful in securing grant
funding (Mitchell leading the NC State role in TUNL and Schetzina in condensed matter
physics). With new leadership in place by the mid 1970s, the department recruited
aggressively and attracted faculty members who were quickly to become quite successful
in securing grant funding (e.g., Sayers, Lucovsky, Risley, Paesler and Cotanch). By 1979,
new awards in the department had risen to about $750,000 per year. The department
increased this to over $1.5 million per year over the period from 1980 to 1985, and it was
emerging as one of the most successful programs at NC State in competitive grant
funding. By then, the department had attracted additional faculty (Nemanich, Bernholc,
and an astrophysics group) who added momentum to that which occurred over the
previous decade. By the late 1980s, considerable funding was being obtained by the
department’s theory and physics education research groups, adding to the support base.
By 1990, the annual grants and contract research expenditures had surpassed $3
million per year. In addition, a number of faculty in the department were securing large
allocations of time on regional and national supercomputers and allocation of time on
major national and international user facilities (e.g., synchrotron and nuclear) that
provided significant additional opportunities for graduate students. By this time the
university began requiring a more uniform reporting of research expenditures for units
Page 63 across the university. The table and figure below are reported research grant and contract
expenditure data for the department for the period 1989 to 2008. Grant expenditures in
the department increased by nearly a factor of three over this period.
The university has recently developed a complete database for all new grants and
contracts by departments and principal investigators that also dates back to 1989. Over
this period, through July 2008, the department has secured about $110 million in grant
support, second at NC State only to the much larger Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering.
At the time of release of this version of the departmental history, all but one of the
tenured, tenure-track departmental faculty members are actively engaged in research
supported by external grant funding. The growth of grant support over the past half
century clearly demonstrates the department has a broad and strong base of research
funding, with essentially all the faculty actively contributing to the research programs,
suggests a very healthy climate for research in the department and points to a very bright
future for it.
Since the small grant of $5,000 for Beck’s proposal to the ACE in 1949, the
external grant funding to the Department of Physics exceeds significantly the combined
total of all other forms of financial support (e.g., state appropriations, tuition and fees,
royalties, and income from gifts and endowments). More than 90 percent of all the grant
funding is now derived from federal resources, with large funding from all major federal
funding agencies including the Department of Energy (DOE), the agency under which the
activities of the AEC were later subsumed.
It is noted that the NC State Department of Physics has accounted for about onethird of all the funding received by NC State from DOE, and its spin-off department (the
Department of Nuclear Engineering in the College of Engineering) has accounted for
nearly one-sixth. Other forms of DOE research support include the joint faculty
supported by Oak Ridge National Laboratories (currently three) and large time
allocations on DOE user facilities (e.g., beam lines and high performance computing).
Clearly, the hiring of Beck and his role in establishing nuclear physics and engineering
programs has had a lasting impact on the department and university.
As a sidelight, the university research funding database, which has detailed grant
award information between 1989 and 2012, shows that the Department of Physics over
the past 18 years ranked second among all departments at NCSU in competitive grants
received during this period. Additionally, over the same time frame, the Department of
Physics captured by far the largest fraction of grants received from the U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE) by any NC State department. The Department of Nuclear Engineering
ranks second in DOE funding; and these two departments have captured nearly 40
percent of DOE funding at NC State.
Page 64 Physics Grant Expenditures /In $M-FY1989-2012
Expenditures from Grants and Contracts
FY
Indirect Costs
Direct
Totals
1989
0.565
2.240
2.805
1990
0.728
2.418
3.146
1991
0.755
2.255
3.010
1992
0.855
2.193
3.047
1993
0.993
2.813
3.806
1994
1.213
2.998
4.211
1995
1.011
3.423
4.434
1996
1.067
4.149
5.215
1997
1.278
4.548
5.826
1998
1.353
5.262
6.615
1999
1.374
4.707
6.081
2000
1.156
4.230
5.386
2001
1.220
4.528
5.748
2002
1.262
4.066
5.328
2003
1.286
4.944
6.230
2004
1.567
4.673
6.235
2005
1.582
5.373
6.955
2006
1.848
5.685
7.533
2007
1.794
6.388
8.181
2008
1.913
6.323
8.237
2009
1.710
5.397
7.027
2010
1.740
5.216
6.956
2011
1.381
4.283
5.663
2012
1.606
4.433
6.098
TABLE 2: Compiled 7/2012
After 2002-2003, figures are from Contracts and Grants NSF Survey Report.
Page 65 FIGURE 43: Physics Grant Funding Expenditures Reported by NC State University
2.
Departmental Locations
An important feature in the development of physics at NC State relates directly to
departmental facilities. The record of space assignments to the department reflects the
entrepreneurship and ingenuity of the physics faculty who have proposed and
successfully implemented numerous teaching and research programs. The brief historical
listing below of major spaces occupied by the Department of Physics illustrates
pioneering efforts led by various faculty members in the department. In addition to the
spaces in the Main Campus (now called the North Campus), the department has
historically been involved in a large number of off-campus collaborative research
programs. The department has also led the university in bringing the science departments
at NC State into interdisciplinary research programs on the Centennial Campus. Despite
its history of having faculty operating spaces in multiple locations, the department has
been noted as a model for its collegiality and cohesiveness.
A. Main Campus (North Campus)
Page 66 i.
(1926-2006) Daniels Hall: This building was constructed for physics and
electrical engineering and served as the primary home for the Department of
Physics from 1926 until 1964 when the department moved to Cox Hall.
However, general physics undergraduate instructional labs remained in Daniels
Hall. The space later was used to house physics graduate student and support
offices. This building was named in honor of Josephus Daniels, who was the
publisher of The News and Observer and served in several roles in the federal
government including Secretary of Navy under Woodrow Wilson.
ii. (1950-1964) Riddick Engineering Laboratories: Space in Riddick was assigned
to physics for the Engineering Physics Graduate Program. Support offices in
Riddick were also assigned to physics.
iii. (1953-1962) Burlington Nuclear Laboratories: The nuclear engineering
program at NC State was initiated by the Department of Physics in addition to
their successful efforts to construct the nation’s first civilian-based reactor
occurred in the early 1950s. With funds from the state, funds internal to the
university and a generous contribution from Burlington Industries, a new
building was constructed. It opened in September 1953 and became the home
of the Department of Nuclear Engineering when that department formally spun
off from physics in 1962.
iv. (1957-2007) Bureau of Mines Building: Nuclear physics research programs
grew during the 1950s in parallel with development of nuclear engineering
programs. To provide research space for nuclear and atomic physics programs,
in the late 1950s the Bureau of Mines Building was transferred to physics.
v.
(1964-2007) Cox Hall: Except for a plasma physics research program and
undergraduate teaching labs, the department moved from Daniels Hall into the
newly constructed General Laboratories Building in 1964. In 1970, the
building was named Cox Hall in honor of Gertrude Cox, the founding head of
the Department of Statistics. Cox was the primary home for the department for
the next 43 years.
Physics occupied the ground floor and floors 2 through 4. The
Instrumentation Shop, which reported through physics until 1989, also moved
to Cox Hall. The first floor of the building housed the departmental offices and
was shared with the dean’s offices and the statistics departmental offices.
Statistics also occupied the fifth and sixth floors. Beginning in 1998, statistics
began vacating spaces in Cox with additional spaces assigned to physics and
the remainder to the Department of Chemistry.
Following the arrival of Professor Gerald Lucovsky in 1978, additional
space was added to the Cox-Dabney complex whereby materials laboratories
were constructed on the ground floor between Cox Hall and Dabney Hall
(previously referred as the “breezeway”). The laboratories were operational in
1979.
The department vacated most of its spaces in Cox Hall and the Bureau
of Mines Building in the summer of 2007 with the move to its new home,
Riddick Hall. One laboratory and and a few offices remained in Cox
Page 67 vi. (1988-present) Dabney Hall: Labs for physics expanded into the ground floor of
Dabney Hall for materials sciences research in space previously occupied by
the Department of Computer Science. Labs in Dabney Hall (third and eighth
floors) were also occupied for relatively short periods for specialized research
programs, the latter from 1989 to 1998 and the former from 2005 to 2007.
Most of the remaining space was vacated with the move in 2007 to Riddick
Hall.
vii. (1989-2003) Withers Hall: Following the move of Marine, Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences to Jordan Hall, laboratory space was assigned to physics
in Withers Hall for general physics labs and tutorial instruction. The general
physics and tutorial laboratories in Withers Hall were moved to the Marye Ann
Fox Building in 2004.
viii.
(1991-1996) Nelson Hall: By the late 1980s, the university had established a
University Space Committee consisting of the provost (chair), the vice
chancellor for research and vice chancellor for finance and business. Following
a request for expansion of research spaced for physics, the department was
assigned space in Nelson Hall and in Patterson Hall. The former was intended
for relocation of the Instrumentation Shop to allow for expansion of materials
sciences research programs in Cox Hall. The latter was actually to be assigned
after Nelson Hall was renovated for the new College of Management, which
freed up space in Patterson.
However, instead of moving the Instrumentation Shop, space in Nelson
was up-fitted for a newly conceived The Science House, a K-12 initiative
headed by physics professor David Haase. Also, the Patterson Hall space was
used for relocation of the Department of Statistics instead of physics expansion
space, which allowed expansion of physics in Cox Hall. The Science House
moved to Research IV on Centennial Campus in 1996.
ix. (2000-2007) Harrelson Hall: The department initiated an Educational Physics
Program in the 1980s and expanded into a nationally prominent program
during the 1990s. The department became recognized as a leader in exploring
teaching innovations in introductory general physics, one of these innovations
is the integration of laboratory and lecture (known as SCALE-UP physics).
This required a new type of classroom rather than the traditional separation of
laboratory and lecture rooms. Space for a large, specialized classroom was
designed and constructed as part of the infill project on the ground floor of
Harrelson Hall.
x.
(2004-present) Marye Anne Fox Science Teaching Laboratory: A modern
teaching laboratory building for general chemistry and physics laboratories was
designed and constructed as the first major project at NC State made possible
by construction funds from the historic Higher Education Bond I Capitals
Program passed in a general referendum in 2000. This building also included
tutorial instruction space for physics.
xi.
(2007-present) Riddick Hall: As one of the major renovation projects of the
Higher Education Bond I Capitals Program, Riddick Hall was completely
renovated, primarily for the Department of Physics and became its principal
home in 2007. About 20 percent of the building was shared initially with the
Page 68 Department of Animal Science. Physics research groups in electronic materials
and nanosciences research continued to occupy spaces in other locations on
campus.
The bond vote heralded the end of the Cox Hall era for the Physics Department in
2005, as the department made plans to move its principal operation to a renovated
Riddick Hall. With a departmental presence in as many as eleven buildings in previous
administrations, the Riddick renovation promised to allow for most faculty offices and
the majority of the laboratory space to be under one roof. A Riddick committee – first
under the leadership of Dale Sayers and later Hans Hallen – worked with architects to
plan a building much grander in scope and more technically current than any previous
departmental space. Between planning and construction, economic realities of the new
century brought the concept of “value engineering” into the equation. This architectural
euphemism resulted in: a shrinking of building square footage as planned stairwells
moved inside building at the expense of lab space; an elimination of a clean room
replaced by a “shelled out” cavernous vacant space; and elimination of a centralized deionized water utility, a specialty gas plumbing system, projectors in seminar rooms; and
architectural woodwork highlights. These changes notwithstanding, the sparkling new
facility shown in figure 1 provided a fresh new home for most departmental operations
that was warmly welcomed by physics faculty.
FIGURE 44:Newly renovated Riddick Hall completed in 2005
With only a few laboratories remaining in Cox, Dabney and Research Building 2,
the department was firmly centered in Riddick with a strong Centennial Campus satellite
in Partners 3. Exceptions to the centralization were also provided by a continued
Page 69 involvement with the Triangle University Nuclear Laboratory and an increased presence
in Burlington labs as Albert Young and other physics faculty collaborated with
colleagues in the Nuclear Engineering Department to develop a cold neutron nuclear
reactor source unique in the world. Teaching laboratories in Fox Hall and the satellite
astronomy site near Schenck Forest complete the department’s space inventory.
While the department expected the entire building to be allocated to it, due to shortage of
overall space on the North Campus of NC State, allocation of considerable space on the
3rd and 4th floors was given to the Animal Science Department. The department expected
that soon thereafter the entire building would be assigned to Physics.
In its first few years in Riddick, the expansion was supplemented with additions –
at department and college cost – of many of the features eliminated through value
engineering. An expense approaching seven figures allowed for the creation of a clean
room. Seminar rooms were outfitted with modern equipment. The hearth was fitted with
a stage and large projection screens. Laboratories were equipped with a centralized deionized water system.
The loss of space to Animal Science notwithstanding, by 2009 the move to
Riddick was completed as initially planned and the department happily settled into its
fresh new facility. Not since the efforts of Arthur C. Menius resulted in the creation of a
new college and a Cox Hall home for the department some 50 years before had the
department enjoyed such an experience. All reservations paled into insignificance as the
faculty enjoyed its new home with a majority of them occupying space in same building
with colleagues in a well-equipped facility.
At this writing, two spaces in Riddick bear the names of Physics Faculty. The 4th
floor conference room 430 was named for former Department Head Richard Patty. The
buildings largest classroom was named the Sayers Auditorium in honor of the
contributions of Dale Sayers.
Riddick featured amenities not enjoyed before the move. All classrooms were
“Classtech” equipped bringing electronic presence into the lecture hall and making use
clickers, powerpoint, and web access part of the learning process. Two classrooms
seating 100 students and one seating 150 allowed for more scheduling flexibility. A large
and bright corner room provided a pleasant home for undergraduates and the Society of
Physics Students. The Graduate program space returned to be again in the same building
as the departmental offices, and the space was sufficiently large to comfortably house all
graduate students not yet committed to a research group. Perhaps most notably, the
Riddick Hearth (shown in Figure 2) provided an inviting space for students to gather and
for the department to hold a variety of functions. Interior decorations in the Hearth were
made by physics students and faculty. The projection screens and stage in the Hearth
allowed for somewhat formal presentations to be made. Simulcasts of events in the
Sayers Auditorium could be broadcast to the Hearth when overflow crowds necessitated.
Page 70 The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and the American Physical
Society (APS) organize a Chairs Conference every year that is held at the American
Center for Physics in College Park, Maryland. Each chair or head is given an opportunity
to raise issues of concern to his or her department, and the ensuing discussion follows a
round table format. The participant list is crafted by the APS from all “research-intensive
universities.” The NC State physics department head has attended all of the meetings of
this group. The meeting has included the following universities:
FIGURE 45: A departmental function in the Riddick Hearth
Johns Hopkins University, University of Washington, University of Michigan, University
of Wisconsin-Madison, Rice University, University of Virginia, Rutgers University,
University of Minnesota, University of Maryland, MIT, Stony Brook University,
University of Pennsylvania, University of California-San Diego, Princeton University,
University of California-Berkeley, Ohio State University, University of Illinois,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Columbia University and Stanford University.
The inclusion of the NC State Department of Physics in this prestigious group is a
measure of the recognition of its prominence nationwide.
B. Centennial Campus
1980s Land Transfer: The State of North Carolina made a generous land
transfer to NC State in the 1980s, with most of the transfer occurring in late 1984 and
1985. NC State, under the directive of Chancellor Bruce Poulton, undertook a major
planning effort to develop a master plan for an innovative 21st century campus
immediately following the land transfer. The plan recommended the creation of a
highly innovative campus, which is now known as the Centennial Campus. The plan
called for the development of a research and advanced technology community where
university, industry and government partners interact in multidisciplinary academic
Page 71 programs directed toward the solution of contemporary problems. The colleges of
Textiles and Engineering were among the first programs targeted for the new campus.
However, the fulfillment of the plan also required strong involvement of the natural
and mathematical sciences. Physics was quick to respond to the opportunity and was
the first department to bring science programs onto the new campus. Initially, the
physics programs on Centennial Campus were in partnership with engineering. Soon
thereafter, physics developed independent laboratories on the campus. Programs and
facilities on Centennial Campus involving physics faculty are identified below.
i.
(1988-1995) Research I: The department participated in a research program in
precision engineering in Research I, the first building on Centennial Campus to
be occupied. No formal space was officially assigned to physics, and by the
mid 1990s, physics no longer occupied space in this building.
ii. (1992-present) Research II: Advanced electronic materials laboratories were
tailored for a small group of physics faculty members beginning in 1991. This
was expanded to include a tribolology group, the latter program moving to the
nanosciences facilities in Partners III (also on Centennial Campus) in 2004.
iii.
(1994-2004) Research III: This building was designed largely as office and
computer intensive laboratory building and since its inception has housed the
regional forecast office of the National Weather Service. A large fraction of the
building was to house the State Climate Office and meteorology and
atmospheric sciences groups in the Department of Marine, Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences.
The opening of the new building coincided with a major planning
effort that had been initiated by physics professor Dale Sayers who was a
pioneer in the invention and development of the X-ray technique known as
Extended X-Ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS), or more simply X-ray
Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS). Sayers’ plan was to attract funding for a
synchrotron facility to be located on the Centennial Campus. The research was
to be directed in large part toward medical imaging, diagnostics and treatment,
and would involve partnerships with the regional medical schools. Space in
Research III was assigned to his group during the planning stage. However,
due to the unexpected death of Rod McCormick, who was recruited as project
manager, and the major change in direction of Congressional funding that
occurred in the mid 1990s, the project was abandoned in 1995. This space
assigned to the Sayers group continued to be occupied by physics until the
opening of Partners III in 2004.
iv. (1996-present) Research IV: The Science House, initially headed by physics
professor David Haase, moved from Nelson Hall to Centennial Campus in
1996. The program thrived under Haase’s leadership from 1990 to 2007. The
new home opened new opportunities for the program and it quickly emerged as
one of the premiere STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics) K-12 outreach programs offered by a major research intensive
university. This program continued to expand and now provides a statewide K12 outreach program, much of which is in physics.
Page 72 v.
(2004-present) Partners III: NC State approved this building with partial
funding from the 2000 Higher Education Bond I Capitals Program.
Contemporary research space was designed and constructed for nanosciences
research programs in physics and chemistry. In addition to housing faculty and
students in several experimental groups in physics, the building houses the
Center for High Performance Simulation, a center founded and directed by a
faculty member in the Department of Physics.
C. Research Off-Campus
NC State University has, as have most of the current research intensive
universities, developed its strong research program since World War II. The Department
of Physics played a vital role in this journey. Faculty members in physics were among the
most successful of any department on campus in establishing collaborative programs in
large government facilities. Clifford Beck headed the department during the formative
years of the 1950s when the first ramp-up of the research program in physics occurred.
This program was one of the early successful research programs at NC State University
and certainly in the sciences. Departmental programs in nuclear physics and nuclear
engineering emerged during this period, and these were significantly enhanced by Beck’s
drawing heavily on his past connections with Oak Ridge National Laboratories. He also
attracted researchers from Duke University and UNC to strengthen the proposal to build
the reactor. His example perhaps served as a paradigm for numerous physics faculty
members in the department who have established similar collaborations since that time.
Among the most noteworthy external departmental collaborations is the jointly
operated Triangle University Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL), which evolved from the
success of nuclear physics and nuclear engineering at NC State. The TUNL program,
with facilities located on the Duke University campus, has been a formal joint venture
established in the late 1960s with NC State, Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill, and has enjoyed
continuous core funding from the Department of Energy since that time. The nuclear
physics faculty group has established numerous collaborative programs with scientists at
national laboratories (e.g., Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge, Thomas
Jefferson Laboratories and the National Institute of Science and Technology) as well as a
number of collaborations at international locations.
Another noteworthy example relates to the pioneering work of Dale Sayers
(EXAFS). He established experimental programs at all major Synchrotron facilities in the
U.S. (e.g., Stanford, Brookhaven, Argonne, Berkeley) and international facilities as well
(e.g., CERN). His work has led to the involvement of dozens of faculty and students in
physics and in other programs at NC State.
In early 2000, NC State joined a consortium headed by Battelle and the University
of Tennessee including 6 other universities and the Oak Ridge Associated Universities in
the management and scientific oversite of Oak Ridge National Laboratory ORNL). Since
that time, four joint faculty members ORNL/NC State Department of Physics have been
appointed, a move which has expanded collaborative research in computational sciences,
materials sciences and neutron sciences. This latter example is illustrative of the
collaborative research model Beck established more than 50 years ago, and perhaps is
most fitting in that, at the time of the writing of this version of the history, it is with the
same laboratory that the Department of Physics first drew upon.
Page 73 3.
TUNL
One event of considerable importance in the development of the department came
in the form of an invitation from Duke University in the 1960s: the nuclear physics
group, under Professor Henry Newsom, had designed an innovative particle accelerator,
which gave promise of providing unprecedentedly high intensity beams of protons up to
30 MeV in energy. The Cyclograaff, as it was called, consisted of a 15 MeV negative
hydrogen ion cyclotron feeding into a 7.5 MV tandem Van de Graaff accelerator. It was
believed that substantial federal support for building and operating this machine could be
obtained from the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). However, the Duke Physics
department was not large enough on its own to carry out the project and offered NC State
and UNC-Chapel Hill the opportunity to be full participants. The proposal was successful
and the laboratory, Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) was founded in
1968, each university with its separate operating grant from the AEC.
Continuously funded since that time, TUNL is one of the most successful multiuniversity research collaborations in the US. Designated a Department of Energy Center
of Excellence in 2005, TUNL has graduate over 200 PhD students since its founding,
approximately 5% of the total US production. Students have gone on to careers in
industry, national laboratories and universities and government, including two
Presidential Science advisers from Duke.
At the time that TUNL was established, there were two smaller Van de Graaff
accelerators already installed. One of them was unique, in that it had the best beam
energy resolution in its energy range, up to a few MeV. The apparent difficulty of
simultaneously having high intensity and high resolution was overcome by using two
beams - H+ and HH+ -- one to perform the actual experiment and one to obtain a
precise feedback signal to eliminate time dependent energy fluctuations. Professor
Mitchell along with his Duke colleague Professor Ed Bilpuch worked there for some 30
years. In the early years the emphasis was on the fine structure of analog states -arguably one of the key topics in nuclear physics during the 1960s and early 1970s.
Subsequently the emphasis changed to examining the predictions of Random Matrix
Theory. This work culminated in two major articles in Reviews of Modern Physics,
which are now the standard reference works on the topic.
At the tandem van de Graaff, research programs utilizing polarized beams rapidly
developed after installation of a high intensity polarized proton and deuteron ion source.
The NC State program of research with polarized targets was a beneficiary of this unique
capability and was the initiator of a long-lasting effort to study parity violation and time
reversal violation in nuclear physics. In the early 1980’s as other nuclear physics facilities
were being phased out, TUNL also developed capabilities for neutron scattering research
in support of defense and energy applications. This program of applied research carried
TUNL through a difficult funding period nationally and paved the way for a major shift
in emphasis in the 1990’s from purely internally focused research, to leadership and
collaboration in a number of national and international research projects.
Early among these national collaborations was the program of parity violation
studies using epithermal neutron beams at Los Alamos. This program involved a number
of NC State and Duke graduate students and lead to a Bonner prize award to the Los
Alamos spokesperson of the so-called TRIPLE collaboration. In keeping with a growing
Page 74 national and international reputation, TUNL personnel also played a major role in
construction and operation of the KamLAND neutrino detector in Japan. KamLAND
included US participation from TUNL, Berkeley, Stanford, CalTech LSU, Alabama,
Drexel, UNM, Hawaii, and Tennessee. In 2003 KamLAND was the first fully terrestrial
experiment to confirm neutrinos did indeed have non-zero mass, a result expected from
growing evidence in solar and astrophysical studies, but not seen in any previous nuclear
reactor studies. Of note, the first US student to get a PhD on this project was from NC
State. This work paved the way for the first ever geo-neutrino studies – observations of
the radioactivity from deep in the earth’s core and its implications for the earth’s internal
heat engine.
Major national US efforts today in nuclear physics which have leadership roles
for TUNL faculty include the MAJORANA collaboration – a search for neutrinoless
double beta decay – and nEDM – a search for a non-zero neutron electric dipole moment.
This latter experiment is the main focus of the NC State experimental nuclear physics
group, and part of that effort involves construction of an ultracold neutron source on the
NC State Pulstar reactor. Half a century later we again see physics and nuclear
engineering working closely together on cutting edge science.
Today TUNL faculty work globally and in-house, operating both traditional inhouse neutron facilities as well as accelerators focused on astrophysics studies and the
DFELL, a unique free electron laser system for production on mono-energetic high
energy gamma ray beams. In its sixth decade, the laboratory continues to serve as an
outstanding example of a multi-university collaboration, now also with active
participation and outside funding from NC Central University, NC A and T University,
and a number of other national and regional groups.
4.
Science House
In 1990, Dr. Jerry Whitten, then the dean of the College of Physical and
Mathematical Sciences (PAMS), proposed that the college should begin an education
outreach program that would represent all of the college’s five departments and would
emphasize the hands-on nature of learning science. Whitten felt that in today’s world
young people do not have the opportunity to tinker with technology, because most
modern devices are packaged and miniaturized. Whitten also observed that the
departments of Chemistry and Physics had been involved in teacher training and visiting
school classrooms for several years, under the direction of Professor David G. Haase, and
that the new “K-12 Learning Laboratory” should build on that experience.
On February 2, 1991, a group of 17 teachers, school administrators, and NC State
faculty met to discuss the concept of The Science House and approaches to the needs of
K-12 mathematics and science education. The group showed a great deal of enthusiasm
for the construction of The Science House. The group saw that the university could best
contribute by providing resources and training for teachers.
In October 1991, The Science House moved into the quarters of B-40 Nelson
Hall, the old Textiles Building on the NCSU campus at the corner of Hillsborough Street
and Dan Allen Drive. The original staff consisted of Dr. David Haase of the Department
of Physics as director, Mrs. Melissa Cole Brown as co-director and science teacher at N.
B. Broughton High School in Raleigh, and Mr. Bob Nance as teaching technician. The
Page 75 original Teacher Advisory Board was composed of Melissa Brown, Elizabeth Woolard,
Betty Welch and Pat Hall, all teachers in Wake County Public Schools.
In September 1996, The Science House moved into the new Research Building IV
on Centennial Campus. By 2006, there were Regional Satellite Offices at Ashville
Edenton, Fayetteville, Jacksonville and Lenoir, NC. Each of the Regional Offices
included one full-time educator housed at a local school system, museum or education
agency.
In 2006, The Science House was comprised of 12 full-time educational staff,
about 60 part-time workers per year who annually reach over 4,000 teachers and 28,000
students across the state. The Science House has collaborated with numerous school
systems, universities and education organizations and led teacher training programs in
Texas, South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, and Arizona. Between 1991 and 2006, The
Science House garnered over $9 million in external grants.
The mission of The Science House is to increase student enthusiasm for science
by partnering with K-12 teachers to promote the use of hands-on inquiry-based learning
activities. The mission is carried out through numerous teacher-training programs,
student science enrichment activities and camps and through large-scale curriculum
projects. From the beginning there has been an emphasis on serving rural schools and
students from groups underrepresented in science.
From the start The Science House offered teacher-training programs on Physics
from the Junk Drawer, Countertop Chemistry, Digging into Earth Science and Hands-On
Mathematics. Many Physics on the Road demonstration programs were presented at
schools.
In 1992, The Science House received two large grants from NSF and the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute Pre-College Program which supported long-term programs to
train rural high school science teachers to use up-to-date laboratory equipment in their
physics, biology and chemistry courses. The programs included extensive summer
training programs and a lending-library of laboratory equipment that was delivered to the
schools by a master teacher. These programs were the seeds of the Regional Offices that
now reach schools across the state.
The Science House annually leads middle and high school summer camps, many
on the NC State campus and some at the Regional Offices. The longest-standing program
is the Imhotep Academy which targets minority middle school students. Founded by Dr.
Wandra Hill of the PAMS Dean’s Office, the academy has been held at The Science
House since the beginning. Roughly 50 middle school students participate in an academic
year session and summer camp each year. The academy has guided many students toward
college careers and has spawned an Algebra Camp, and the Photonics Leaders and
Xplorers programs for high school students.
The Science House has become nationally known as a resource to help translate
the science of the university to K-12 schools. The Science House has led the K-12
education outreach programs for two large multi-campus NSF research centers: the Rice
Blast Genomics Laboratory and the Center for Environmentally Responsible Solvents
and Processes. In each of these activities, The Science House has produced curriculum
materials and teacher training programs in several states.
With support from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the National Science
Foundation, The Science House between 2000 and 2005 hosted six conferences on K-12
outreach from university science departments. These conferences brought together
scientists and educators from across the nation to discuss issues of how to involve
Page 76 scientists and current science topics to enhance K-12 education. Six volumes of
conference proceedings were published.
The Science House has promoted the cause of physics in North Carolina through
the broad reach of the Physics on the Road demonstration program and teacher programs,
such as Physics from the Junk Drawer. For years, the Department of Physics
Demonstration Room and The Science House have partnered for the Isaac and Albert’s
Excellent Adventure public program. This annual event typically draws an audience of
300 to campus for a night of exciting physics demonstrations. The graduate course,
Advanced Placement Physics for Secondary School Teachers, was begun as a summer
teacher institute in the early 1980s at the behest of the NC Department of Public
Instruction. The course is now housed in The Science House and taught via distance
learning and face-to-face Saturday sessions. The Science House staff is active in the state
and national AAPT and in education activities of the APS.
Physics faculty, graduate students and undergrads have taken part in K-12
outreach as teachers, provided laboratory visits, consulted on science content, co-written
proposals, and presented at activities such as the annual Expanding Your Horizons
Conference for middle school girls. With the support of NASA, the astrophysics research
group and The Science House have led numerous teacher training programs on
astronomy. Perhaps the most unusual was the Pleiades Project, designed by female
physics graduate students, who, with NASA funds, expanded their activities to teach
middle school Girl Scouts about the stars and to show them that women could be
scientists.
Largely for his activities in founding and guiding The Science House, Dr. Haase
was chosen 1990 Professor of the Year in the State of North Carolina by the Council for
the Advancement and Support of Education. He received the Alexander Quarles Holladay
Medal for Excellence from NC State University in 1998 and the Pegram Medal for
Excellence in Physics Education from the Southeastern Section of the American Physical
Society in 2001. He has served as chair of the Executive Board of the Forum on
Education of the APS.
The Science House continued to serve students across the state after Haase left the
leadship role and by and in 1012 formally established a joint partnership with the
NorthCarolina Museum of Natural Sciences. It also had become involved in several
programs across the country.
5.
WebAssign
WebAssign is the world’s premier, online homework, quizzing and testing
management system for math and science. It began in 1997 as a project in the Department
of Physics and spun off in 2003 under the management of Advanced Instructional
Systems Inc., a privately held North Carolina company located on NC State’s Centennial
Campus.
A hosted application service, WebAssign offers instructors a wide variety of tools
and features to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their teaching. WebAssign is
widely used and a highly regarded tool for online homework, quizzes, tests and exams,
pre- and post-labs and laboratory reports, polls and surveys, just-in-time teaching, and
coordinated teaching with a group of instructors.
Page 77 The system includes features such as a grade book with weighted categories and
scores, student forums, bulletin boards, messaging, textbook and open source questions,
randomized, algorithmic questions, proper mathematical display of algebraic expressions,
timed, secure, password and IP restricted exercises, built-in calendar and communication
tools, simulations, animations, and chemical drawing tools.
The backbone of WebAssign’s success is a team of veteran educators who bring
years of classroom experience and research to bear in the arena of computer-aided
assessment. Since its inception, WebAssign was developed “by teachers, for teachers.” It
is supported by a team of programmers, content specialists, editors, designers, and
instructors. New features and improvements are deployed continuously to provide the
best possible assessment system. In partnership with all leading textbook publishers,
WebAssign delivers problems from class-adopted textbooks. WebAssign is offered as a
fee-based subscription service to teachers at universities, secondary schools and other
educational institutions.
According to WebAssign, no other service is known to have the collective support
of so many academic visionaries who recognize the Internet as a dynamic framework for
teaching and learning., Well over 2 million students/per year were using it and they have
submitted more than one billion answers to be graded, receiving millions and millions of
pages of feedback on their homework submissions. WebAssigned used its internally
developed coding of hundreds of thousands of textbook questions to offer, practical
problems and “clicker” questions. By 1012, the revenues exceed $30M per year and the
company had over 180 employees.
6.
Center for High Performance Simulations-CHiPS
The Center for High Performance Simulation (CHiPS) brings together expertise
present in the colleges of Engineering and Physical and Mathematical Sciences at NC
State University in electronic, atomic, meso-scale and macroscopic simulation methods
and offers advanced training and research to graduate students. Among the aims of the
center are the promotion of interdisciplinary interactions in these areas, including multiscale approaches to complex systems, and advanced education in these areas. The center
is organized along three multi-disciplinary thrust areas: (a) materials and biomaterials; (b)
computational fluid dynamics, including meteorological and astrophysics applications;
and (c) applied mathematics and computer science. The center organizes graduate courses
in simulation methods, workshops on special topics in high performance simulation,
seminars by visiting researchers, and has a visiting professor program for talented
researchers from other institutions.
The Center is directed by Professors Jerzy Bernholc (Physics) and Keith Gubbins
(Chemical Engineering). There are about 20 active faculty members in the center, drawn
from the departments of Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Mathematics, Computer
Science, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical and
Civil Engineering. It is the first UNC-system-approved center in the NC State University
Department of Physics.
Page 78 7.
L. H. Thomas Lecture Series
In recognition of the pioneering work of L. Hilleth Thomas, the L. H. Thomas
Lecture was established by the department in 1980. A listing of the world-renowned
speakers who have delivered special lectures in his honor is shown below.
Year
Lecturer
Nobel Award
1980
Norman F. Ramsey
1989
1981
John Archibald Wheeler
1982
Victor Frederick Weisskopf
1983
Arthur L. Schawlow
1981
1984
Eugene P. Wigner
1963
1985
Edward Teller
1986
T.D. Lee
1957
1986/1987
Linus C. Pauling
1954 (Chemistry), 1962
(Peace)
1987
William A. Fowler
1983
1988
Emilio Segre
1959
1989
Leon N. Lederman
1988
1990
Kenneth G. Wilson
1982
1991
Hans Dehmelt
1989
1992
Murray Gell-Mann
1969
1995
Jerome I. Friedman
1990
1996
Nicolaas Bloembergen
1981
1997/1998
Heinrich Rohrer
1986
1998
Sheldon Glashow
1979
2001
William D. Phillips
1997
2003
Carl E. Weiman
2001
2004
Ahmed H. Zewail
1999
2006
Brian Greene
Page 79 2007
David Lee
1996
2008
Sir Harry Kroto
1996
TABLE 3: The L.H Thomas Lecture Series
IV.
Faculty
1. Tenure-Track and Major Contributing Faculty from 1894 to 2008, presented both
chronologically and alphabetically.
These tables list faculty members in the Department of Physics, the year each
received his/her PhD (if completed), the institution at which the degree was awarded, and
the date the faculty member joined NC State University.
Faculty Member
Ade, Harald
Antonakos, Antonios
Armstrong, Carter
Aspnes, David E.
Baker, Colin C.
Barnes, Nathan Hale
Barrett, J. H.
Bartlett, G. W.
Beck, C. K.
Beichner, Robert J.
Bennett, Willard H.
Bernholc, Jerzy (Jerry)
Blondin, John M.
Bochinski, Jason Russell
Borkowski, Kazimierz
Brown, E. J.
Brown, John D.
Browne, William H.
Buongiorno-Nardelli, Marco
Chabay, Ruth W.
Chilton, Jimmie Herbert
Chung, Kwong T.
Clarke, Laura I.
Cobb, Grover C., Jr.
Cook, James W., Jr.
Cotanch, Stephen R.
Daniels, Karen E.
Davis, William Robert
NC State Physics Faculty, 1894-2008
Listed Alphabetically
Date PhD
Received
PhD Institution
1990
Suny at Stony Brook
1971
1965
2004
1943
1989
1928
1977
1987
2000
1988
1931 (MS)
1985
(BA)
1993
1975
1993
1966
1998
1961
1971
1973
2002
1956
University of Maryland
University of Illinois at Urbana
University of Delaware
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Suny at Buffalo
University of Michigan
University of Lund (Sweden)
University of Chicago
University of Oregon
University of Colorado at Boulder
North Carolina State University
The University of Texas at Austin
Johns Hopkins University
Intl School for Advanced Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana
North Carolina State University
Suny at Buffalo
University of Oregon
University of Virginia
Clemson University
Florida State University
Cornell University
Goettingen University
Page 80 Hire
Date
1992
1957
1977
1992
2004
1895
1954
1943
1949
1992
1961
1986
1993
2005
1995
1943
1992
1910
1995
2002
1999
1970
2003
1961
1981
1976
2005
1957
Derieux, J. B.
Dixon, A. A.
Doggett, Wesley Osborne
Dough, R. L.
Dougherty, Daniel
Egler, Robert A.
Ellison, Donald C
Everling, F. G.
Fornes, Raymond Earl
Fortner, Brand
Frolich, Carla
Gildart, L. W.
Golub, Robert
Gould, Christopher R.
Gundognu, Kenan
Haase, David G.
Hall, George L.
Hallen, Hans D.
Heck, C. M.
Henderson, Richard
Heyward, Ivan Keith
Hopkins, J. I.
Hubisz, John L.
Huffman, Paul R.
Isberg, P. G.
Jenkins, Alvin W.
Ji, Chueng Ryong
Johnson, Charles E.
Johnston, Karen L.
Jones, K. R.
Katzin, Gerald H.
Kelley, John H.
Kellner, James
Kelly, H. C.
Kim, J.J.
Klenin, Marjorie A.
Krim, Jacqueline
Kohlmeyer, Matthew
Lado, Fred
Lancaster, F. W.
Lanterman, Elma
Lazzati, Davide
Lee, Dean J.
Lim, Shuang Fang
Lu, Wenchang
Lucovsky, Gerald
Lynn, J. T.
1918
1956
1962
2004
2004 (MA)
1982
University of Chicago
University of California-Berkeley
North Carolina State University
University of Maryland
Almeda University
Catholic University of America
1970
1992
2007
1950
1968
1969
2004
1975
1956
1991
(MA)
North Carolina State University
University of Illinois
University of Basel
Northwestern University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Pennsylvania
University of Iowa
Duke University
University of Virginia-Main Campus
Cornell University-NY State
Columbia University
2008
North Carolina State University
1968
1995
Foreign Institutions
Duke University
1958
University of Virginia-Main Campus
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology
Yale University
The University of Texas at Austin
1982
1967
1979
1963
1995
2001
1936
1974
1970
1984
2006
1964
1951
1951
2001
1998
2004
1993
1960
1940 (MS)
North Carolina State University
Michigan State University
Ohio State University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Wisconsin
University of Pennsylvania
University of Washington
Carnegie Mellon University
University of Florida
Duke University
Indiana University
Universita degli Studi
Harvard University
University of Cambridge
Fudan University
Temple University
Ohio State University-Main Campus
Page 81 1916
1918
1958
1963
2008
1987
1987
1965
1970
2006
2010
1950
2004
1971
2008
1975
1966
1993
1914
1894
2008
1943
1993
2004
1952
1966
1987
1973
1982
1942
1963
2000
2010
1962
1978
1977
1998
2008
1968
1930
1951
2008
2001
2012
1999
1980
1943
Manring, E. R.
Martin, D. H.
McIntyre, H. K.
McLaughlin, Gail C.
Meares, J. S.
Memory, Jasper D.
Menius, A. C.
Mitas, Lubos
Mitchell, Gary E.
Moore, E. Frank
Moore, W. J.
Moss, M. K.
Mowat, J. Richard
Murray, R. L.
Nemanich, Robert J.
Owen, Hubert
Paesler, Michael A.
Paine, E. B.
Park, Jae Y
Parker, George W.
Patty, Richard R.
Pearl, Thomas P.
Philbrick, C. Russell
Pritchett, V. C.
Ramakrishnan, Prabha K.
Reynolds, Stephen P.
Riehn, Robert
Risley, John S.
Roland, Christopher M.
Rowe, John E.
Sagui, Maria C.
Sayers, Dale E.
Schaefer, Thomas M.
Schetzina, Jan F.
Seagondollar, Lewis W.
Sherwood, Bruce A.
Snyder, R. H.
Stainback, R. F.
Stiles, Phillip J.
Swanson, Eric
Thomas, John
Thomas, Llewellyn H.
Tilley, David R.
Underwood, Newton
Walter, H. C.
Waltner, Arthur
Wang, Hong
Warren, Keith
(MS)
Ohio State University-Main Campus
University of Wisconsin
1996
(MS)
1960
1942
1989
1962
1988
University of California-San Diego
North Carolina State University
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Slovak Academy of Sciences
Florida State University
Florida State University
1962
1969
1950
1977
(BS)
1975
North Carolina State University
University of California-Berkeley
University of Tennessee
University of Chicago
Wake Forest University
University of Chicago
1962
1965
1960
2000
1966
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of South Carolina
Ohio State University-Main Campus
University of Chicago
North Carolina State University
1984
1980
2003
1973
1989
1971
1995
1971
1992
1969
1948
1967
1928
North Carolina State University
University of California-Berkeley
University of Cambridge
University of Washington
McGill University
Brown University
University of Toronto
University of Washington
University of Regensburg
Pennsylvania State University
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Chicago
Ohio State University-Main Cam
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Pennsylvania
University of Toronto
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge University
Johns Hopkins University
Brown University
1961
1991
1979
1958
1934
1949
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
2003
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
1993 (MS) Appalachian State University
Page 82 1964
1958
1911
2001
1925
1964
1949
2000
1968
1992
1908
1959
1976
1950
1986
1962
1980
1905
1962
1964
1964
2003
2009
1911
2003
1985
2006
1976
1993
1996
1997
1976
2002
1970
1965
2002
1948
1943
1993
1994
2011
1967
1966
1950
1909
1948
2011
1992
Weihe, Frederick A.
Weninger, Keith R.
Whitehead, W. Dexter
Williams, Dudley
Wilson, William
York, J. W., Jr.
Young, Albert R.
Berlin University
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Virginia
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
1913 (D.Sc.) Manchester University
1966
North Carolina State University
1990
Harvard University
1997
1949
1897
2004
1953
1963
1946
1965
2000
TABLE 4. NC State Physics Faculty Listed Alphabetically
Faculty Member
Henderson, Richard
Barnes, Nathan Hale
Weihe, Frederick A.
Paine, E. B.
Moore, W. J.
Walter, H. C.
Browne, William H.
McIntyre, H. K.
Pritchett, V. C.
Heck, C. M.
Derieux, J. B.
Dixon, A. A.
Meares, J. S.
Lancaster, F. W.
Jones, K. R.
Bartlett, G. W.
Brown, E. J.
Hopkins, J. I.
Lynn, J. T.
Stainback, R. F.
Wilson, William
Snyder, R. H.
Waltner, Arthur
Beck, C. K.
Menius, A. C.
Gildart, L. W.
Murray, R. L.
Underwood, Newton
Lanterman, Elma
Isberg, P. G.
Whitehead, W. Dexter
Barrett, J. H.
Antonakos, Antonios
NC State Physics Faculty, 1894-2008
Ordered Chronologically by Hire Date
Date PhD
Received
PhD Institution
Berlin University
(BA)
Johns Hopkins University
(MA)
1918
Columbia University
University of Chicago
(MS)
1951
North Carolina State University
Duke University
1931 (MS) North Carolina State University
1940 (MS) Ohio State University-Main Campus
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
1913 (D.Sc.) Manchester University
1928
Ohio State University-Main Cam
1949
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
1943
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
1942
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
1950
Northwestern University
1950
University of Tennessee
1934
Brown University
1951
Indiana University
1949
University of Virginia
Page 83 Hire
Date
1894
1895
1897
1905
1908
1909
1910
1911
1911
1914
1916
1918
1925
1930
1942
1943
1943
1943
1943
1943
1946
1948
1948
1949
1949
1950
1950
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1957
Davis, William Robert
Doggett, Wesley Osborne
Martin, D. H.
Moss, M. K.
Bennett, Willard H.
Cobb, Grover C., Jr.
Kelly, H. C.
Owen, Hubert
Park, Jae Y
Dough, R. L.
Katzin, Gerald H.
Williams, Dudley
Manring, E. R.
Memory, Jasper D.
Parker, George W.
Patty, Richard R.
Everling, F. G.
Seagondollar, Lewis W.
York, J. W., Jr.
Hall, George L.
Jenkins, Alvin W
Tilley, David R.
Thomas, Llewellyn H.
Lado, Fred
Mitchell, Gary E.
Chung, Kwong T.
Fornes, Raymond Earl
Schetzina, Jan F.
Gould, Christopher R.
Johnson, Charles E.
Haase, David G.
Cotanch, Stephen R.
Mowat, J. Richard
Risley, John S.
Sayers, Dale E.
Armstrong, Carter
Klenin, Marjorie A.
Kim, J.J.
Lucovsky, Gerald
Paesler, Michael A.
Cook, James W., Jr.
Johnston, Karen L.
Reynolds, Stephen P.
Bernholc, Jerzy (Jerry)
Nemanich, Robert J.
Egler, Robert A.
Ellison, Donald C
1956
1956
(MS)
1962
1928
1961
1936
(BS)
1962
1962
1963
1960
1965
1960
Goettingen University
University of California-Berkeley
University of Wisconsin
North Carolina State University
University of Michigan
University of Virginia
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Wake Forest University
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
North Carolina State University
North Carolina State University
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Ohio State University-Main Campus
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of South Carolina
Ohio State University-Main Campus
1948
1966
1956
1958
1958
University of Wisconsin-Madison
North Carolina State University
University of Virginia-Main Campus
University of Virginia-Main Campus
Johns Hopkins University
Cambridge University
1964
University of Florida
1962
Florida State University
1966
Suny at Buffalo
1970
North Carolina State University
1969
Pennsylvania State University
1969
University of Pennsylvania
1967
Yale University
1975
Duke University
1973
Florida State University
1969
University of California-Berkeley
1973
University of Washington
1971
University of Washington
1971
University of Maryland
1970
University of Pennsylvania
1974
University of Wisconsin
1960
Temple University
1975
University Of Chicago
1971
Clemson University
1979
The University of Texas at Austin
1980
University of California-Berkeley
1977
University of Lund (Sweden)
1977
University of Chicago
2004 (MA) Almeda University
1982
Catholic University of America
Page 84 1957
1958
1958
1959
1961
1961
1962
1962
1962
1963
1963
1963
1964
1964
1964
1964
1965
1965
1965
1966
1966
1966
1967
1968
1968
1970
1970
1970
1971
1973
1975
1976
1976
1976
1976
1977
1977
1978
1980
1980
1981
1982
1985
1986
1986
1987
1987
Ji, Chueng Ryong
Ade, Harald
Aspnes, David E.
Beichner, Robert J.
Brown, John D.
Moore, E. Frank
Warren, Keith
Blondin, John M.
Hallen, Hans D.
Hubisz, John L.
Roland, Christopher M.
Stiles, Phillip J.
Swanson, Eric
Borkowski, Kazimierz
Buongiorno-Nardelli, Marco
Rowe, John E.
Sagui, Maria C.
Krim, Jacqueline
Chilton, Jimmie Herbert
Lu, Wenchang
Kelley, John H.
Mitas, Lubos
Young, Albert R.
Lee, Dean J.
McLaughlin, Gail C.
Chabay, Ruth W.
Schaefer, Thomas M.
Sherwood, Bruce A.
Clarke, Laura I.
Pearl,Thomas P.
Ramakrishnan, Prabha K.
Baker, Colin C.
Golub, Robert
Huffman, Paul R.
Weninger, Keith R.
Bochinski, Jason Russell
Daniels, Karen E.
Fortner, Brand
Riehn, Robert
Dougherty, Daniel
Gundognu, Kenan
Lazzati, Davide
Heyward, Ivan Keith
Kohlmeyer, Matthew
Philbrick, C. Russell
Frolich, Carla
Kellner, James
1982
1990
1965
1989
1985
1988
1993 (MS)
1987
1991
1968
1989
1961
1991
1988
1993
1971
1995
1984
1993
1993
1995
1989
1990
1998
1996
1975
1992
1967
1998
2000
1984
2004
1968
1995
1997
2000
2002
1993
2003
2004
2004
2001
2008
2006
1966
2007
2001
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology
Suny at Stony Brook
University of Illinois at Urbana
Suny at Buffalo
The University of Texas at Austin
Florida State University
Appalachian State University
University of Chicago
Cornell University-NY State
Foreign Institutions
McGill University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Toronto
University of Colorado at Boulder
International School for Advanced Studies
Brown University
University of Toronto
University of Washington
North Carolina State University
Fudan University
Michigan State University
Slovak Academy of Sciences
Harvard University
Harvard University
University of California-San Diego
University of Illinois at Urbana
University of Regensburg
University of Chicago
University of Oregon
University of Chicago
North Carolina State University
University of Delaware
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Duke University
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Oregon
Cornell University-Endowed College
University of Illinois
University of Cambridge
University of Maryland
University of Iowa
Universita degli Studi
North Carolina State University
Carnegie Mellon University
North Carolina State University
University of Basel
Ohio State University
Page 85 1987
1992
1992
1992
1992
1992
1992
1993
1993
1993
1993
1993
1994
1995
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
1999
2000
2000
2000
2001
2001
2002
2002
2002
2003
2003
2003
2004
2004
2004
2004
2005
2005
2006
2006
2008
2008
2008
2008
2008
2009
2010
2010
Wang, Hong
Thomas, John
Lim, Shuang Fang
2003
1979
2004
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Cambridge
2011
2011
2012
TABLE 5. NC State Physics Listed by Date of Hire
.
2. Brief Biographies of NC State Physics Faculty Members
Brief biographies of faculty members follow in alphabetic order. The members
themselves wrote the material, except in those cases marked by an asterisk. Those so
marked were written by one of the authors (J.D.M. or R.E.F.) using available data.
Harald W. Ade
Professor Ade received his PhD in 1990 in Physics from SUNY at Stony Brook
(now Stony Brook University) and joined the NCSU faculty in 1992. He has held
appointments at NCSU ever since: Assistant Professor (1992-97), Associate Professor
(1997-2001), and Full Professor (since 2001).
Prof. Ade developed a number of novel instruments and characterization methods,
which include Near Edge X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (NEXAFS) microscopy, X-ray
linear dichroism microscopy, X-ray photoemission microscopy, resonant x-ray
reflectivity and scattering, and 13C-labeling in Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS)
depth profiling. Their applications focus primarily on determining the composition,
morphology and structure of polymeric and electronic materials at the sub-micron spatial
scale.
H. Ade received the K. F. J. Heinrich Award of the Microbeam Analysis Society
(2000), a DuPont Young Faculty Award (1994-97) and an NSF Young Investigator
Award (1994-1999). He was also recognized by a Sigma Xi Award of the NCSU Sigma
Xi Chapter (1995) and an R&D100 Award (1990). He was also supported by the Proctor
& Gamble Presidential Faculty Fellow Support Program (1995). The development of an
advanced Scanning Transmission X-ray Microscope resulted in the Halbach Award for
Innovative Instrumentation, Advanced Light Source, Berkeley, in 2002, and was
commercialized in 2006.
Extracurricular tidbit: Ran New York Marathon in 1987.
David E. Aspnes
Professor Aspnes received his PhD in 1965 from the University of Illinois —
Urbana/Champaign (UIUC). Following a year as a postdoctoral research associate at
UIUC and another at Brown University, he joined Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, as a
member of the technical staff. In 1984, he became Head of the Interface Physics
Department in the newly created Bellcore, the part of Bell Laboratories that went with the
operating companies in the AT&T divestiture. He joined NC State University as a
Professor of Physics in 1992, and was named Distinguished University Professor of
Physics in 1999.
Page 86 Professor Aspnes is best known for his experimental and theoretical work on the
development and application of optical techniques for the analysis of materials, thin
films, interfaces, and structures. These optical techniques include theory and practice of
spectroscopic
ellipsometry,
modulation
spectroscopy,
reflectance-difference
spectroscopy, and materials-and interface-analysis using nonlinear optics.
Electroreflectance, a branch of modulation spectroscopy that he developed, provided
information needed to develop non-local pseudopotential theory and other more accurate
methods of calculating the energy band structure of semiconductors. Spectroscopic
ellipsometry is now a routine metrology tool in integrated-circuits technology. Other
contributions include virtual-interface theory, generally used for establishing the
properties of materials during deposition, and the anisotropic-bond model of nonlinear
optics. By providing insight into nonlinear-optical processes at the atomic level, the latter
has greatly facilitated the interpretation of nonlinear optical data.
Recognition includes the 1987 R. W. Wood Prize of the Optical Society of
America, the 1993 John Yarwood Memorial Medal of the British Vacuum Council, the
1996 Frank Isakson Prize of the American Physical Society, a 1996 Alumni Outstanding
Research Award from NCSU, a 1997 Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Prize for International
Cooperation, the 1998 Medard W. Welch Award of the American Vacuum Society,
election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1998, and a 2005 Alumni Distinguished
Graduate Professor Award from NCSU. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society,
Optical Society of America, Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers,
American Vacuum Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and
the World Innovation Society. In 2005 he was President of the American Vacuum
Society. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Therma-Wave, Inc., Fremont,
CA.
Henning O. Back
Professor Back received his PhD in 2004 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University (Virginia Tech) developing the internal radioactive source calibration
system for the Borexino Solar Neutrino Experiment located at the Laboratori Nazionale
del Gran Sasso, in Italy. He came to NC State in 2004 as a Post-Doctoral Research
Associate in Professor Young’s neutron group, working on both the Ultra Cold Neutron
A-correlation coefficient (UCNA) experiment and the Majorana double beta decay
experiment. In 2008, he joined the faculty as a Research Assistant Professor continuing to
pursue his interests in neutrino physics and low-energy nuclear physics methods for
probing particle physics parameters.
Professor Back’s research in neutrino physics focuses on the Majorana
neutrinoless double beta decay experiment. Majorana is searching neutrinoless double
beta decay in 76Ge by using isotopically enriched high purity germanium spectrometers
enriched in the 76Ge isotope. Neutrinoless double beta decay is the only practical method
for determining if the neutrino has a non-zero majorana mass, which implies that the
neutrino is its own anti-particle. A non-zero majorana mass also requires that total lepton
number conservation is violated, which is not allowed in the Standard Model of Particle
Physics. In addition to majorana, Professor Back contributes to the neutrino physics
community by determining the limits to the technology for removing naturally occurring
radioactive radon from laboratory air; a potentially limiting background for neutrino
Page 87 detectors. He is also involved with material assay work, which determines the amount of
radioactive Uranium and Thorium in materials used to build neutrino detectors.
The UCNA experiment measures the beta asymmetry in neutron beta decay. This
is done by measuring the momentum of the emitted beta relative to the neutron spin in
free neutron beta decay. The A-correlation coefficient can then be used together with the
neutron life time to determine the value V ud of the CKM quark mixing matrix and
determine if the CKM matrix is unitary.
Clifford K. Beck*
Professor Clifford K. Beck (PhD, University of North Carolina), joined the NC
State Department of Physics as professor and head in 1949, with a mandate to strengthen
its research capability and develop graduate programs. Before coming to NC State, he
had been Research Scientist on the Manhattan Project (the development of the atomic
bomb) at Columbia University from 1943 to 1945. He then joined the Oak Ridge
Gaseous Diffusion Plant of Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation as Technical
Assistant to the Plant Manager in 1945-46, and then as Director of Research Lab 19461949.
He served as consultant for the Hanford Company, Washington, Sverdrops and
parcel Engineering Company, Monsanto Chemical Company, Consolidated Vultec
Aircraft Company, and American Machine and Foundry Company.
Robert Beichner
Professor Beichner received his PhD in 1989 from the State University of New
York at Buffalo. After working at Buffalo as a visiting faculty member for three years, he
joined the NC State Physics Department in 1992 as an Assistant Professor. He advanced
through the professorial ranks and was named an Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate
Professor in 2003. He is a member of our Physics Education Research and Development
Group, one of the largest in the world.
He invented the now-popular Video-Based Lab pedagogy, where students
examine video clips of motion and watch synchronized kinematics graphs. As part of that
effort he created the Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics that is used worldwide.
That work led Dr. Beichner and his students to write and evaluate a series of conceptual
assessment instruments that are used by teachers and researchers from around the globe.
For much of his career he has focused his attention on redesigning introductory
physics education and created the SCALE-UP (Student Centered Activities for Large
Enrollment University Physics) project. This approach has led to changes in classrooms
around the world, at institutions ranging from Wake Technical Community College to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. By the second decade of the 21st Century,
SCALE-UP had been adopted at more than 150 universities and had spread to other
content areas and into middle and high schools, necessitating a name change to Student
Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies. By that time, the
University of Minnesota had 22 SCALE-UP classrooms in use and nearly all MIT
students took a class in one of their SCALE-UP based classrooms. Other universities
have also adopted this approach for classes ranging from archeology to zoology.
He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and was named Fellow of the
American Council on Education in 2010 and Fellow of AAAS in 2011. A textbook he
co-authored with Raymond Serway became the top selling introductory physics book in
Page 88 the nation, being used by more than a third of all science and engineering undergraduates.
He was named the founding editor of a journal for the American Physical Society (APS),
Physical Review Special Topics: Physics Education Research.
He has received numerous teaching awards and is a member of NC State’s
Academy of Outstanding Teachers. He received the Ohaus Award for Innovation from
the National Science Teachers Association. He was named the 2009 North Carolina
Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and
received the 2010 UNC Board of Governors Award. Beichner was named the 2010
National Undergraduate Science Teacher of the Year by the Society of College Science
Teachers and the National Science Teachers Association. In 2011 he was awarded
the McGraw Prize, the premier honor in the field of education. He was also honored by
Congress as noted in the US Congressional Record of September 29, 2011.
Willard H. Bennett*
Born in Findlay, Ohio, Professor Bennett attended Carnegie Institute of
Technology from 1920-1922. He later attended Ohio State University; the University of
Wisconsin, where he earned an Sc.M. in physical chemistry in 1926; and the University
of Michigan, where he earned a PhD in physics in 1928. Bennett was elected to a
National Research Fellowship in Physics and in 1928 and 1929 studied at the California
Institute of Technology. In 1930, he joined the physics faculty at Ohio State. Following
service in World War II, Bennett worked at the National Bureau of Standards, the
University of Arkansas, and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. In 1961, he was
appointed Burlington Professor of Physics at North Carolina State University (emeritus in
1976). Bennett held 67 patents.
Jerzy (Jerry) Bernholc
Professor Bernholc received his PhD in 1977 from the University of Lund,
Sweden, after spending parts of 1975 and 1976 at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
in New York. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the IBM Watson Center 1978-80 and a
Senior Physicist at Corporate Research Laboratories of Exxon Research and Engineering
Company 1980-86. Bernholc joined NC State University in 1986 as an Associate
Professor, became Full Professor in 1990 and Drexel Professor in 2000. In 2004, he
formed the Center for High Performance Simulation (ChiPS) at NCSU, of which he is
the first Director. Since 2002, he also serves as a Visiting Distinguished Scientist at Oak
Ridge National Laboratories.
Bernholc is working in several subfields of theoretical condensed matter and
materials physics. In the area of semiconductors, he has contributed significantly to the
theory of defects and impurities, semiconductor surfaces and steps, and surface optical
response. In the emerging field of fullerenes, contributions include predictions of
fundamental properties of solid C60 soon after its discovery. For nanotubes, the primary
growth modes were uncovered and their extreme strength – over 10 times greater than
steel at one sixth the weight – was predicted through simulations. Another important area
of research is new methodology for electronic structure calculations, using advanced
mathematical techniques and harnessing the power of parallel computers. Current
research focuses on nanoscale science and technology, nano and molecular electronics,
novel nanostructured and bio-inspired materials, linear-scaling and multiscale electronic
structure methods, and scalable parallel computing.
Page 89 He is a recipient of IBM’s Outstanding Innovation Award for work on “Electronic
Structure of Point Defects in Solids,” NCSU Alumni’s Outstanding Research Award,
NSF’s Creativity Award, and Jesse Beams Award for Outstanding Research, given by the
Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society. He was also a Finalist for
Computerworld Smithsonian Science Award. He is a Fellow of American Physical
Society, is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World, and is a
member of Materials Research Society and Sigma Xi. He was elected Chair of the
Division of Computational Physics of the American Physical Society and also chaired its
Fellowship and Program Committees, as well as the Rahman Prize Committee of the
APS.
Bernholc co-authored 215 papers and 175 invited talks at conferences, edited
three books, and gave over 70 seminars and colloquia at Universities and Research
Centers. Illustrations from his work appeared on the covers of Physics Today, Physics
World, Science, Science News, and Science and Engineering Indicators. He helped
organize over 50 conferences and symposia, and co-chaired workshops on Recent
Developments in Electronic Structure Algorithms; CECAM’s Grid, Multigrid and
Wavelet Methods in Electronic Structure Calculations, and NATO’s Multiscale
Computational Methods in Chemistry and Biology. He served on numerous government
panels and committees, and currently chairs the Scientific Advisory Board of the Center
for Nanophase Materials Science at ORNL.
John M. Blondin
Professor Blondin received his PhD in 1987 from The University of Chicago and
did postdoctoral work at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of
Virginia, and UNC-CH. He joined NC State University in 1993 as an Assistant Professor.
His research focuses on computational gas dynamics, with applications to
interacting binary stars, accretion disks around compact objects, planetary nebulae,
supernovae and supernova remnants. His research places a strong emphasis on the
dynamics of shock waves; He discovered the Non-linear Thin-Shell Instability and the
Spherical Accretion Shock Instability, the later of which may aid in driving supernova
explosions. He co-authored the hydrodynamics code VH-1, which is widely used in the
astrophysics community.
He is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award and a Sigma Xi Research Award,
and has been named a Cottrell Scholar and an NCSU Alumni Outstanding Teacher. He is
a member of the American Astronomical Society, the American Physical Society, and
Sigma Xi.
Jason Russell Bochinski
Professor Bochinski earned his BS in Physics from MIT and worked for several
years in research and development for GTE Laboratories, Inc., before receiving a PhD in
2000 from the University of Oregon. Following postdoctoral research at JILA/University
of Colorado, he joined NC State University as a Research Professor in 2005.
Professor Bochinski’s research interests are broad. He is a co-author of eight
issued U. S. patents concerning electrodeless high intensity discharge lighting. His PhD
work investigated dressed atom dynamics and lasing without inversion processes in
bichromatic excitation fields. His postdoctoral research involved generation of cold polar
molecules utilizing time-varying, spatially inhomogeneous, electric fields. Other work
has explored fundamental characterization and spectroscopic measurements of cold
Page 90 alkaline earth-like atoms within magneto-optical traps. Most recently, his research has
focused on the development of novel, nanoscale experiments such as sensitive optical and
dielectric measurements, to study the dynamical processes of molecules on surfaces.
He received the Leslie H. Warner Award for Technical Achievement from GTE
and was a recipient of a Department of Energy Graduate Fellowship as well as a National
Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship. He is a member of the American Physical
Society and the Optical Society of America.
Kazimierz Jan Borkowski
Professor Borkowski obtained his undergraduate education and his MS degree in
Astronomy from University of Wroclaw (Poland) in 1977, and his graduate education
and his PhD degree from University of Colorado in Boulder in 1988. He then participated
in astronomical research at University of Virginia in Charlottesville, University of
Maryland in College Park, and at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, before joining
North Carolina State University in 1995 as Research Faculty.
Astrophysics of the interstellar medium is the main topic of Dr. Borkowski’s
research. He has been involved in both theoretical modeling and space-based
observations. His current professional interests are focused on remnants of supernovae.
Theory includes hydrodynamical simulations, and modeling of X-ray and infrared spectra
and morphology. Observations are done with the Great NASA Observatories, the
Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope, and other space-based
telescopes. Scientific goals involve understanding of stellar explosions through studies of
their remnants, elucidating the nature and importance of strong interstellar shocks, and
the role of supernovae and their remnants in the formation and destruction of interstellar
dust.
He is a member of the American Astronomical Society. X-ray astronomers
worldwide use computer software developed by him and his collaborators for use in
interpreting and analyzing X-ray spectra of supernova remnants.
David J. Brown
Professor Brown received his PhD from The University of Texas at Austin in
1985, and held postdoctoral positions at the University of Vienna, Austria, The
University of Texas, and the University of North Carolina. He came to NCSU in 1992 as
a visiting professor in the physics and mathematics departments. He was appointed to a
regular faculty position, joint between the physics and mathematics departments, in 1995.
In 1998 his position was converted to physics only. Dr. Brown’s research area is general
relativity.
Marco Buongiorno-Nardelli
Professor Marco Buongiorno-Nardelli received his PhD from the International
School for Advanced Studies (SISSA/ISAS) in Trieste (Italy) in 1993 after graduating
summa cum laude from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1989. After a short
tenure at the Laboratorio TASC in Trieste, in 1995 he joined the group of Prof. J.
Bernholc at NC State as a post-doctoral associate. In 2001 he joined the faculty of the
Department of Physics at NC State as the first joint faculty appointment with the Oak
Ridge National Laboratory.
Page 91 His research activities are focused on the application of ab initio electronic
structure techniques to the theoretical study of important aspects of the physics of
materials.
He is well known and internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work on
the physical and electronic properties of carbon nanotubes, his contribution to the first
principles theory of electronic transport in nanostructures and his studies of the physics of
surfaces and interfaces. His research has been highlighted on numerous popular press
articles and news services.
He has been awarded the 1st Annual NC State University International Research
Exposition Award in recognition of ``Outstanding Research in Physics’’ (1998), the
Faculty Research and Professional Development Award, NC State University (2003) and
the Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award, NCSU Chapter (2004).
He is also an accomplished classical and Jazz musician, composer and performer
on flute, saxophones and recorders.
Ruth W. Chabay*
Professor Chabay received her PhD from the University of Illinois in 1975 and
joined the NC State Department of Physics in 2002.
Her research at NC State has been in physics education. She has authored, along
with Bruce Sherwood, the textbook Matter & Interactions, which presents a restructured
approach to the teaching of the first course in university physics, in addition to numerous
research papers.
Kwong T. Chung*
Professor Chung got his BS degree in 1961 from National Taiwan University,
Republic of China. After one year of military service, he came to the United States to
pursue graduate study in physics. He attended the State University of New York at
Buffalo and obtained his PhD degree in physics in May 1966. He taught two years in the
Department of Physics, State University of New York, College at Fredonia. Thereafter,
he went to University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, for post doctoral research as
an assistant research physicist for two years. He joined NC State University in 1970 as an
assistant professor.
He specialized in the field of theoretical atomic physics, studied the property of
atoms and its interaction with external electric and magnetic fields. He has developed
methods for high precision prediction of atomic property, collaborated closely with many
experimental physicists around the world. His work was instrumental in the
understanding of many high resolution spectra obtained in the experiments.
Many of the theoretical methods he developed in atomic physics are quite unique
and powerful. Because of these achievements, he was elected a fellow in the American
Physical Society in 1987. In his fellowship citation, it stated ”for development of
extremely incisive method of calculation … Foremost among these methods is a holeprojection technique.”
Laura I. Clarke
Professor Clarke received her PhD in physics from the University of Oregon in
December 1998. She had a brief postdoctoral position with Dartmouth College and then
was a research assistant from 1999 to 2003 at the University of Colorado. She joined the
NC State University physics department as an assistant professor in August of 2003.
Page 92 Her work focuses on sensitive electrical and optical measurements of nanostructured materials. In particular, she is interesting in observing low energy molecular
motion within self assembled monolayers and polymers, including two-dimensional
phase transitions within monolayer films. Another portion of her laboratory studies
conductance through nanocomposite systems formed by mixing conducting and
insulating materials.
Grover C. Cobb, Jr.*
Professor Cobb received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 1961, and he
joined the NC State Department of Physics that same year.
He co-authored, with Raymond Murray, the introductory university textbook
Physics: Concepts and Consequences, and served extensively as a consultant for the
Department of Defense.
James W. Cook, Jr.
Professor Cook received his BS degree from Auburn University in 1965, his MS
degree from the University of Alabama in 1967 and his PhD in physics from Clemson
University in 1971. He came to NC State as a research associate in 1977 working with
Professor Dale Sayers on extended x-ray absorption fine structure studies. In 1981 he
joined the faculty as an assistant professor.
Professor Cook’s research was in semiconductor materials in collaboration with
Professor Jan Schetzina. He worked on the thin film growth of II-VI materials such as
HgCdTe and ZnSe by molecular beam epitaxy. He also studied the thin film growth of
GaN by metal organic chemical vapor deposition.
Stephen Robert Cotanch
Professor Cotanch received his PhD in 1973 from the Florida State University. He
was a visiting graduate student at Princeton University for the 1971-72 year and a
postdoctoral research associate at the University of Pittsburgh from 1973 to 1976. He
joined NC State University as Assistant Professor in 1976.
His research contributions center on many-body techniques to diagonalize
effective Hamiltonians, describing the complex behavior of systems of fermions and
bosons interacting via the electromagnetic, weak and strong nuclear forces (including
Quantum Chromodynamics). He advanced the understanding of the structure of nuclei,
hypernuclei and elementary particles, especially exotic glueballs and hybrid mesons
containing color confined gluons and quarks. He developed improved scattering and
reaction formulations for direct nuclear reactions, photonuclear processes and K meson
scattering and production. He also collaborated with experimentalists, including proposed
particle measurements and detector design, and he derived several novel constraint
relations and theorems from fundamental principles and symmetries to assist
experimental analysis.
He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of Sigma Xi, Sigma
Pi Sigma and Phi Kappa Phi. In 1993 he was awarded a Nordita Nordic Professorship to
perform research at the Neil Bohr Institute in Copenhagen and the Universities of
Uppsala and Helsinki.
Perhaps his most notable (notorious to some) non-academic activity was as
captain of NCSU faculty & staff running team known as the “Road Scholars”, which in
Page 93 its golden, but sadly ephemeral, years dominated the NC Masters 5K Corporate Race
Series.
Karen E. Daniels
Professor Daniels received her PhD in 2002 from Cornell University and spent
2002-5 as a postdoctoral research associate at Duke University. She joined the faculty of
North Carolina State University in 2005, and was promoted to Associate Professor in
2011. She was a 2007 recipient of an NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program
(CAREER) Award, and a 2011 recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship
which provided support for a sabbatical leave to the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics
and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany.
Her main research interests center around experiments on the nonequilibrium and
nonlinear dynamics of granular materials, fluids, and gels. These experiments have
allowed her lab to address questions of how failure occurs, how non-trivial patterns arise,
and what controls the transitions between different classes of behaviors. Several of these
studies have used idealized systems to provide insight into biological and geological
phenomena.
She is a member of the American Physical Society, American Geophysical Union,
American Association of Physics Teachers, and Sigma Xi.
William R. Davis*
Professor Davis received the PhD from the University of Goettingen in 1956 and
joined the NC State Department of Physics in 1957.
Professor Davis’ research has been in mathematical physics, with special
emphasis on field theory. He was also the editor of the acclaimed Collected Works with
Commentaries of Cornelius Lanczos.
Wesley Osborne Doggett
Professor Doggett received his PhD in Physics in 1957 from the University of
California at Berkeley with research in low energy experimental nuclear physics. He took
courses by four Nobel Prize Laureates, Professors Luis Alvarez, Emilio Segré, Owen
Chamberlain, and Edwin McMillan and by Professor Edward Teller. During 1956-58, he
served as a commissioned officer with the AF Nuclear Engineering Test Reactor project
office at Wright Air Development Center at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio and advanced
to its Technical Project Coordinator. In 1958 he joined the Physics Department at NCSU,
became a full professor in 1962, and retired as Professor Emeritus of Physics in 1993.
During 1964-68, he served as Assistant Dean of the School of Physical Sciences and
Applied Mathematics. Prior to 1962, he collaborated with Professor Raymond L. Murray
in the Physics Department’s Nuclear Engineering Program. After 1968, he collaborated
with Professor Willard H. Bennett in his plasma physics research program until Professor
Bennett’s retirement in 1976.
At Berkeley, he discovered the radioactive isomer Rb81m and performed the first
experiment to use a correlation method to measure millisecond half-lives of radioactive
daughters in decay equilibrium with long-lived parent radioactivities. At NCSU, he made
theoretical and experimental contributions to nuclear reactor physics and engineering,
nuclear radiation attenuation, gamma ray transport theory, statistical correlation methods
for measuring radioactive half-lives, collective ion acceleration, concentration of intense
relativistic electron beams, speed of surface flashover for dielectrics in intense electric
Page 94 fields, production of radioactivity and intense microwave pulses and other experiments
with intense relativistic electron beams. He established the first intense relativistic
electron beam accelerator laboratory in the southeastern US. He collaborated in
experiments and theory with other professors in nine NCSU Departments. This work
spawned successful research programs in some of these departments. He has published
papers in nine different peer reviewed journals and presented papers at meetings of six
different scientific societies. While Assistant Dean of PAMS, he was a member of the
Administrative Board of the Graduate School. He coordinated and edited PAMS’
contributions for establishing the Triangle Universities Computation Center and the
Department of Computer Science and to successful proposals for major support from the
National Science Foundation, the National Defense Education Act, and the Department
of Health, Education and Welfare for fellowships, program enhancements and
construction projects. After retiring, he was associate editor of the six-volume, 3,456page Cornelius Lanczos Collected Published Papers with Commentaries (1999)
described on the web page, http://www.physics.ncsu.edu/lanczos. His students have
achieved distinction in universities, industry and government laboratories and have
created high-tech companies.
• Listed in Marquis’ American Men of Science and World’s Who’s Who in
Science and in Engineers of Distinction.
• Member of NCSU’s Academy of Outstanding Professors.
• Received two Poteat Awards by the North Carolina Academy of Science
(physics and mathematics)
• Received the “Outstanding Research Award” for faculty from the NCSU
Chapter of Sigma Xi. (Was first undergraduate student to become an associate
member.)
• President of NCSU Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi. (Was its honorary Student Vice
President.)
• Founding member of Board of Directors of Troxler Electronic Laboratories in
the Research Triangle Park.
• Received the Air Force Commendation Medal.
• Member of American Physical Society and its Education Committee,
American Nuclear Society, NC Academy of Science, American Association
for the Advancement of Science.
• In 2004 his son, Eric, established the Wesley O. Doggett Endowment of The
Science House, (a PAMS outreach project) which is now receiving
contributions from former students.
• Consulted for several technical industries, governmental agencies and
research institutes.
• Research supported by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, US
Army Research Office, US Naval Research Laboratory, Varian Associates,
and Physics International.
Daniel Dougherty
Professor Dougherty earned his PhD from the University of Maryland at
College Park in 2004 under the direction of Professor Ellen D. Williams. His thesis work
involved the direct time resolved observation of defect motion on semiconductor and
metal surfaces using high temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. In 2005, he took a
Page 95 postdoctoral position with Professor John T. Yates Jr. in the Surface Science Center at the
University of Pittsburgh. During this time he learned the technique of scanning tunneling
spectroscopy for the purpose of electronic characterization of small aromatic molecules
adsorbed on solid surfaces. When the Surface Science Center closed in the fall of 2006,
Dan moved to the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg as a
National Research Council postdoctoral associate. Working in the group of Steven
Robey, he applied the technique of tunneling spectroscopy, in combination with a variety
of photoelectron spectroscopies, to the study or organic heterojunctions for low cost
photovoltaic applications. He joined the physics department at NC State in the fall of
2008 where he began construction of a new surface physics laboratory.
Robert A. Egler
Professor Egler received his MA in astronomy from Almeda University in 2004,
after having taught astronomy at North Carolina State University for 17 years. Prior to
coming to NC State as an Instructor in 1987, he worked for several years at The
Aerospace Corporation in Los Angeles as a Member of the Technical Staff in the
Navigation Analysis Section of the Satellite Navigation Division. While at The
Aerospace Corporation he worked on the early stages of the Global Positioning System,
and the Space Surveillance and Tracking System Project for the Air Force.
At North Carolina State University he served as faculty supervisor for the
introductory physics labs where he developed and implemented experiments for the
freshman-sophomore-level instructional labs and oversaw 43 graduate teaching
assistants. He was instrumental in introducing computers to the introductory laboratories
in the early 1990’s. He was appointed Lecturer in 1988, after which he taught
introductory astronomy to a total of over 4000 students. He was appointed Assistant
Department Head under Richard Patty in 1993, and continued to serve in that capacity
under Chris Gould and Michael Paesler, as well as supervising the department’s
instructional observatory. He was appointed Senior Lecturer in Astronomy in 2005.
His positions at NC State were primarily instructional and administrative;
however he continued to work on some problems in navigation, and later turned his
attention to the history and development of astronomy in medieval Europe, with several
publications in both fields.
He received the BA cum laude in Physics and Astronomy from the University of
Pittsburgh in 1985, where as a student he conducted public lectures and tours of the
university’s Allegheny Observatory, and he was the first undergraduate permitted to
teach a physics lab as instructor of record.
In addition to his degree-related studies, for continuing education he also studied
philosophy of science at NC State at the graduate level, and archaeology at Oxford after
receiving his MA.
Prior to attending the University of Pittsburgh, he worked as a professional
firefighter and paramedic for six years, being injured three times in the line of duty, and
receiving a commendation for the off-duty rescue of seven people.
He is a member of the American Astronautical Society, the Archaeological
Society of America, the Medieval Academy of America, the Royal Astronomical Society
of Canada, and the Royal Institute of Navigation.
Donald C. Ellison
Page 96 Professor Ellison received his PhD in 1982 from The Catholic University of
America. He spent a year at the Service d’Astrophysique, Saclay, France before taking up
a joint postdoctoral position at the University of Maryland and NASA/Goddard Space
Flight Center. He joined the faculty of North Carolina State University in 1987. The year
1995 was spent on sabbatical at the Service d’Astrophysique and the Fall semester of
2007 was spent at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at
Stanford University.
Most of Ellison’s research has centered on developing theoretical models of
particle acceleration mechanisms in astrophysics. He was among the first to recognize the
importance of nonlinear effects in diffusive shock acceleration and he developed Monte
Carlo computer simulations to investigate this effect. This work has been applied to the
production of cosmic rays in supernova remnants as well as to collisionless shocks in the
heliosphere. He was also among the first to investigate the effects of efficient particle
acceleration in relativistic shocks with applications to gamma-ray bursts. Other research
accomplishments associated with shocks include the modeling of the production of strong
magnetic turbulence in shocks and the use of particle-in-cell computer simulations to
investigate the injection of thermal particles into the diffusive shock acceleration
mechanism.
He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the American
Astronomical Society.
Raymond Earl Fornes
Professor Fornes accepted a faculty position in the College of Textiles at NC State
in early 1970 immediately after completing his PhD, also at NC State, under the direction
of Jasper Memory. At that time, Textiles had recently begun a new PhD program in fiber
and polymer science and recruited Fornes and another physicist to develop research
programs and curricula in polymer physics. His research concentrated in two broad
areas—structure/property relationships of anisotropic polymers and on environmental
effects of polymer systems. Fornes continued his collaborations with Memory and
established a long-term collaboration with a polymer chemist, where the team began a
long series of investigations on high performance composite systems. He developed the
first x-ray laboratory in the NC State polymer program and equipped the laboratory with
both wide and small angle diffractometers.
Fornes was promoted to full professor in 1979. From 1982-87, he served as
Associate Dean of the Graduate School (1982-87) at NC State. In 1984, Fornes’
professorial position was moved to the Physics Department, along with his research
program. Over his faculty career, Fornes directed or co-directed 24 PhD students and
more than 20 MS students. He has been recognized at North Carolina State University as
both an outstanding teacher and outstanding researcher. He received the Fiber Society’s
Distinguished Achievement in Fiber Science Award. He also was the principal organizer
of the NC State Undergraduate Research Symposium, a campus wide event that
highlights undergraduate research.
Fornes has taken off-campus assignments at American Enka Research
Laboratories (1973), NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratories/California Institute of
Technology (1983), and with the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable
(GUIRR) of the National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of
Engineering/Institute of Medicine (1997-98), and undertook a special assignment during
Page 97 2000-2001 with the National Academies in the Policy Division of the National Research
Council.
Fornes has been active at the national level in professional organizations and
activities including: Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, the Fiber Society, the
American Physical Society, the American Chemical Society, and the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served on Boards of the
Southeastern University Research Association, and Advisory Boards at Cornell
University and Georgia Institute of Technology. Fornes also currently serves as the
University Liaison to Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL) and as the NCSU
Counselor to the Oak Ridge Association of Universities (ORAU). NCSU is among a
group of eight universities formally involved in the oversight and scientific direction of
ORNL. Fornes’ liaison role is to promote partnerships and collaborations between faculty
at NCSU and scientists at ORNL as well as promoting the use of user facilities at ORNL
by NCSU faculty.
Fornes has maintained an active role throughout his career in university
governance at the departmental, college and university levels serving on numerous
committees, senior search committees and the NC State Faculty Senate. He has focused
much of his attention over the past two decades serving in roles at NC State aimed at
strengthening physics and other sciences at NCSU. In 1989, Fornes accepted the role of
Associate Dean for Research in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
(PAMS). Research funding for the college, led by the physics department, increased more
than four fold during his time in this position. He played a key role during this period in
establishing a strong presence of physics and other PAMS programs on the highly
innovative NC State Centennial Campus resulting in nanophase materials research space
for physics. Fornes also played a key role in the college’s successful efforts to secure and
expand significantly modern research and teaching facilities resulting in newly renovated
space for Riddick Hall which serves as the new home of the Physics Department and in
the Fox Science Teaching Laboratory.
Brand Fortner
Professor Fortner is a research professor in physics at NCSU, and is considered an
expert in accessible scientific visualization and in technical data formats. He previously
was chief scientist of the intelligence exploitation group of the Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Lab (where we worked on video steganography and other projects for
government agencies), and is the founder of two scientific software companies, Spyglass,
Inc.(listed by NASDAQ as one of the ten most successful initial public offerings in 1995)
and Fortner Software LLC (the leading provider of low cost scientific visualization tools
such as Noesys and Transform). He was listed as one of the country’s top technological
innovators in 1991 by Discover Magazine.
Dr. Fortner previously held positions at NASA, where he lead the team that
developed the HDF-EOS remote sensing data format, and at the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications, where he led the Macintosh development team. Dr.
Fortner holds a PhD in astrophysics (neutron star accretion studies) from the University
of Illinois, and has funded a chair in astrophysics at that university. He also cosponsors
the Roger Ebert Film Festival at the University of Illinois, and won the university’s
distinguished alumni award in 2005. He is a member of numerous corporate and
university boards and advisory councils, and has written two books and numerous articles
on color vision and technical data.
Page 98 Dr. Fortner is an avid photographer and an instrument rated private pilot.
Carla Frohlich
Professor Frohlich received her PhD in Physics in 2007 from the University of
Basel in Switzerland. She spent 3 years as Enrico Fermi Postdoctoral Fellow at the
University of Chicago before joining the faculty at NC State University in 2010 as an
assistant professor.
She works in theoretical nuclear astrophysics, focusing on the origin of the
elements. Her work includes studying core collapse supernovae as nucleosynthesis site,
identifying critical nuclear and neutrino physics for nucleosynthesis icoseconds,
abundances in metal-poor halo stars, and the origin of the elements heavier than iron. Her
main contributions are the discovery of a new nucleosynthesis process, the neutrino-pprocess, which for the first time allows to explain the observed abundances in the most
metal-poor stars, and the prediction of neutron star mass and nickel yields from core
collapse supernova simulations.
She received the SPS Award for General Physics from the Swiss Physical Society
in 2007 for the discovery of the neutrino-p-process.
James Kellner
James (Jim) Kneller received his PhD from The Ohio State University (OSU) in
2001 on the subject of Light Element Nucleosynthesis under the supervision of Gary
Steigman. After remaining at OSU for a year, he came to NC State in 2002 as a postdoc
working with Gail McLaughlin leaving in 2005 to take up another postdoc position at the
University of Minnesota. In 2008 he later became a ‘chercheur’ at the French Institut de
Physique Nucleaire (IPN), a division of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(CNRS), and then returned to NC State in 2010 as an assistant professor.
Jim’s research in theoretical astrophysics has wandered over his early career from
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, the Cosmic Microwave Background and dark energy through
to Galactic Chemical Evolution and Cosmic Ray Spallation. But as a postdoc at NC State
he began to explore the flavor oscillation of supernova neutrinos and this subject has
remained a source of interest for him ever since. One highlight is the paper he coauthored with Gail McLaughlin and Justin Brockman on the dynamical MSW effect in
supernova which remains the most comprehensive exploration of this phenomenon in the
literature. His other work onneutrinos has focused upon either the theoretical
underpinnings of the subject leading to his generalization of the diabaticity functions to
arbitrary numbers of neutrino flavors and arbitrary interaction Hamiltonians, or upon
large computational projects — particularly on turbulence – in an effort to generate
realistic Galactic supernova neutrino burst signals. The results from these calculations
were used to asses the sensitivity of the various Large Baseline Neutrino Experiment
designs to supernova neutrinos. In 2011 Jim was awarded a Department of
Energy’s Early Career Research Program award for five years.
Robert Golub
After graduating from the Bronx High School of Science, in New York City,
Professor Golub received the BscEE degree from The City College in 1959. He then went
to MIT where he received the MscEE degree in 1961 and the PhD (Physics) degree in
Page 99 1968. During his period at MIT he was supported by an NSF fellowship and then by an
industry funded fellowship. His thesis work, concerned with decelerating Ammonia
molecules in order to increase the interaction time was carried out in the Atomic Beam
Laboratory of Profs. J R Zacharias and JG King.
From 1967-68 he was an instructor at Brandeis University where he worked in the
atomic beam laboratory of Edgar Lipworth working on problems concerning the
interaction of atoms with e-m fields.
In Sept. 1968 he moved to the molecular beam lab of K F Smith at the University
of Sussex, England, where he was introduced to neutron physics, in particular the search
for an electric dipole moment (EDM) of the neutron. His interest in Ultra Cold Neurons
(UCN) was stimulated by the desire to improve the sensitivity of edm searches and it was
while he was at Sussex that he co-invented a new class of non-thermal equilibrium UCN
sources (‘superthermal sources’). During this period he helped initiate the UCN program
at the then new Intitut Laue Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, France and designed the first
UCN edm experiment to be carried out at that institute.
In 1980 he moved to the Technical University Munich (T. U. M.), in Germany
and continued his work at ILL where he constructed the first superthermal UCN source
based on superfluid He4 and invented a new kind of neutron scattering method to study
properties of the superfluid.
During this time he co-invented a new kind of neutron scattering instrument using
cold neutrons (Neutron Resonance Spin Echo). There are currently 5 or 6 instruments
around the world based on this principle.
From 1985-86 he was at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich where he
worked on detection of solar neutrinos and dark matter returning to the T. U. M. in 1986.
In 1991 he moved to the Technical University of Berlin and the Hahn Meitner Institute
(HMI) where he built a cold neutron beam for fundamental physics that was used for
several experiments studying symmetry violation in the weak interaction and fission. He
developed the basic ideas for the current edm search being carried out by a collaboration
led by LANL, doing some basic investigations of the properties of Helium 4 as a
scintillator for neutron detection and worked on an NRSE instrument that was installed at
HMI.
In 2005 he moved to NCSU where he has been working on UCN sources and the
above edm project.
He is co-author of more than 100 published papers and a book “Ultra Cold
Neutrons” (Adam-Hilger, 1991). In 2007 he was elected fellow of the American Physical
Society.
Research Interests: Producton and applications of Ultra-cold neutrons: Search
for a neutron electric dipole moment; Applications of neutron Larmor precession to
neutron scattering and neutron optics (e.g. neutron spin echo).
Christpher R. Gould
Professor Gould received his PhD degree in 1969 from the University of
Pennsylvania, and joined NC State University in 1971 following a two year post doctoral
appointment at Duke University. He served as Head of the Physics Department from
1995 to 2005, and currently serves as Associate Dean for Administration in the College
of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.
Page 100 Trained as an experimental nuclear physicist, his research interests have focused
on investigations of the fundamental symmetries of parity and time reversal invariance,
on studies of the properties of neutrinos, and on investigations of nucleon-nucleon and
nucleon-nucleus forces using polarized beams and spin polarized nuclear targets. He coadvised the 1992 APS division of nuclear physics dissertation award winner James
Koster, for his work on precision studies of parity-even time-reversal-invariance in
neutron scattering from spin aligned holmium-165. He was a founding member of the
Los Alamos TRIPLE collaboration which observed the largest parity violation signal
seen in epithermal neutron resonance scattering in heavy nuclei. He advised the first US
student to receive a PhD on the KamLAND project in Japan, the first experiment to
observe flavor oscillations in neutrinos emitted by nuclear reactors. His early work on
computer based real time data acquisition in the 1980’s lead to the development of the
first 32-bit VAX-based systems, later adapted at nuclear research facilities in China,
Saudi-Arabia and various US nuclear physics laboratories.
He was named a member of the Academy of Outstanding Teachers at NC State in
1984, named an Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor in 1990, and was the
nominee of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences for the Board of
Governors’ Teaching Award in 1999. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society
and is named in “Who’s Who in the World”.
Kenan Gundognu
Professor Gundogdu received his PhD in 2004 from the University of Iowa. Then
he continued his postdoctoral studies at the University of Iowa between 2004-06 and at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology between 2006-08. He recently joined the
physics faculty at North Carolina State University.
During his PhD work, he used ultrafast spectroscopic techniques to study electron
and hole spin dynamics in quantum dots and narrow band gap semiconductor
heterostructures with the motivation of developing spin based electronic devices. In his
postdoctoral studies, he developed novel spatio-temporal pulse shaping methods for IR
and optical 2D Fourier transform spectroscopy, the optical analogue of multi-dimensional
NMR experiments. He performed these experiments to study electron dynamics in
condensed matter systems and vibrational dynamics in biomolecules and hydrogen
bonding complexes.
His research at NC State involves developing novel ultrafast spectroscopic
methods to address problems in condensed matter physics and nanoscience. His program
especially focused on the investigation and characterization of coherent and incoherent
exciton dynamics that play a critical role in determining the energy conversion efficiency
in photovoltaic devices. His ultimate goal is to provide clear understanding of photon
absorption, exciton transport, and charge separation dynamics in novel nanostructures to
help engineering high efficiency solar energy conversion devices.
David Glen Haase
Professor Haase received his BA in Physics and Mathematics in 1970 from Rice
University, and an MA and PhD in Physics from Duke University (1975), where he was a
J. B. Duke Graduate Fellow. He joined the Physics Department at NC State as a Visiting
Assistant Professor in 1975, and was appointed a tenure-track Assistant Professor in
1976.
Page 101 He has collaborated on a number of experiments involving polarized neutrons and
cryogenic polarized nuclear targets. He was responsible for the design and construction
of the targets and also contributed in other aspects of the research programs. The
experiments took place at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory, the Los Alamos
Neutron Scattering Center, and the Frank Institute for Neutron Physics, JINR, Dubna,
Russia. Specific projects included:
• Measurement of the spin-dependent total cross-section in polarized 27Al.
• Measurement of enhanced parity violation in compound nuclear resonances.
Tests of parity and time-reversal violation in neutron transmission using
polarized and aligned 165Ho targets.
• Measurement of the s-d mixing angle ∑1 using polarized hydrogen targets
• Measurement of neutron spin dependent cross section in 3He using a solid 3He
target polarized to 37% at 13 millikelvin.
• Measurement of magnetic domains in ferromagnetic holmium using
epithermal polarized neutrons
• Measurement of the spin-dependent transmission of polarized neutrons
through a dynamically polarized deuteron target.
He has also conducted experimental research on properties of quantum solids,
alloys of solidified gases, and high temperature superconductors.
In 1990 he was appointed by the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
to develop a learning outreach project that emphasized hands-on learning in K-12
mathematics and science. That project became The Science House, which annually serves
5,000 teachers and 20,000 students in counties across North Carolina. The purpose of the
Science House programs is to increase student enthusiasm for the sciences and to help
teachers present challenging and stimulating science and mathematics classes. The
programs emphasize the partnership of school teachers and university science faculty.
The Science House now includes twelve teaching staff and several associated faculty and
has five satellite offices in North Carolina.
Dr. Haase was chosen 1990 Professor of the Year in the State of North Carolina
by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. He received the
Alexander Holladay Medal for Excellence, NC State University in 1998 and the Pegram
Medal for Excellence in Physics Education of the Southeastern Section of the American
Physical Society in 2001. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and served as
Chair-Elect of the Executive Board of the Forum on Education of the APS. He was
named an Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor in 1989.
George L. Hall*
Professor Hall received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 1956, and he
joined the NC State Department of Physics as professor in 1966. His research was in
theoretical physics, largely in the field of condensed matter.
Hans D. Hallen
Professor Hallen received his BS degree in Engineering Physics from Cornell
University in 1984, and his MS and PhD degrees in applied physics from Cornell
University in 1986 and 1991, respectively. At Cornell, he studied sub-micron-scale
Josephson junctions, conducted photoemission studies of atomic ordering near interfaces
of plasma-oxidized silicon, and hot-electron-induced nano-scale modifications of metal
Page 102 surfaces with a scanning tunneling microscope. During 1991-1993, he was with the
Physical Research Laboratory, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ where he
developed the first scanning Hall probe microscope, and used it to study high temperature
superconductivity and vortex propagation in small structures. He joined the North
Carolina State University Physics Department in 1993.
He led the group that produced the first near-field Raman images, and identified
new physics in nanoscale optical spectroscopy. He first described and measured gradientfield Raman spectroscopy, important near metallic nanostructures, which complements
standard near-field Raman spectroscopy. He studied nanoscale carrier dynamics in
silicon: wafers and solar cells. His results identifying electron induced motion of atoms in
conductors as disparate as Au and YBCO have led to a novel view of transport of few eV
electrons in metals, including grain-boundary effects. He has studied microwave
propagation to test long range channel prediction algorithms for wireless
communications, which enable adaptive signaling – making full use of the rapidly
varying wireless signaling environment. Currently he is interested in propagation of ultrawideband pulses in shadowed environments. He has developed a nano-bioprobe for
localization of optical interactions within cells, such as for studies of intracellular signal
transduction pathways. He has also shown that similar probes can be used to manipulate
the nucleus out of and in to cells. He has active projects in nanoscale characterization
with scanning proximal probe microscopes utilizing optical, electrical, and photoemission
probes. He is investigating in-plane oriented molecular deposition with nanoscale lateral
resolution, scanning nano-transport microscopy, surface modification for functionality,
Raman lidar techniques, and novel nanoscale material approaches for 3-D packaging of
RF wafers.
He has served on numerous panels for NSF, DOE, and DARPA, and on
conference organizing committees and session chairs. He was a short course instructor on
near-field scanning optical microscopy for many years at the Materials Research Society
Meetings, and a tutorial instructor for the American Physical Society.
Irvine Keith Heyward
Professor Heyward earned his PhD from North Carolina State University in 2008
under the direction of Professor John Blondin. His thesis work addressed the transfer of
energy via acoustic waves during the post-bounce phase of core collapse supernovae
using computational
hydrodynamics. Prior to his PhD work, Professor Heyward earned a Bachelor of
Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1983 and worked in the
electrical power industry for 18 years. In 2008, he was hired as a Lecturer at North
Carolina State University, and in 2011, received the position of Teaching Assistant
Professor also at North Carolina State University.
John L. Hubisz*
Professor Hubisz received his PhD in 1968 from York University and the Centre
for Research in Experimental Space Science, Toronto, Ontario, and joined the NC State
Department of Physics in 1993.
His research has centered on physics education. Along with Professor Gould, he
carried out a study of errors in middle school science texts, which was covered by the NY
Page 103 Times, USA Today, and Reader’s Digest, in addition to many other of the news media, in
the United States and abroad. In connection with this work, he was interviewed by ABC,
CBS, NBC, and the Fox network. He was president of the American Association of
Physics Teachers in 2001; Hewlett Fellow, 1997-1999; and received the NC State
Alumni Outstanding Extension and Outreach Award in 2004. He is professor emeritus,
College of the Mainland, Texas City, Texas (1993-present).
Paul R. Huffman
After obtaining his BS in Physics at NC State in 1990, Professor Huffman earned
his MA (in 1992) and his PhD (in 1995) in Physics at Duke University. Paul then spent
three years as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University before taking a staff position at
the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD. Paul joined the
Physics department in 2004 as an Associate Professor with a 5-year joint appointment
with the Physics Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Paul is also a member
of the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory.
Paul’s research efforts are centered around using neutrons to both test the Standard
Model and investigate the weak interaction through beta decay and neutron-nucleon
processes. This includes performing experiments in these areas and in the development of
new neutron sources for use in future fundamental neutron physics experiments. Paul has
also been involved in the development of a neutron imaging facility for fuel cells.
Alvin W. Jenkins*
A native of Raleigh, Professor Jenkins obtained a BS and an MS in Electrical
Engineering from NC State before serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the
Korean War. He later earned a PhD in physics from the University of Virginia. He joined
the NC State Department of Physics in 1966 and his principal research focused on stellar
evolution. He was head of the department in 1975, a time in which the department was
beginning an important increase in size and strength.
Professor Jenkins played euphonium for many years in the local group "The Little
German Band"
Chueng Ryong Ji
Professor Ji received his PhD in 1982 from Korea Advanced Institute of Science
and Technology (KAIST) after getting MS in KAIST, 1978, and BS in Seoul National
University, 1976, respectively. He joined the theory group of the Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center (SLAC) in 1982. In 1984, he became a postdoctoral fellow at
Department of Physics, Stanford University and was appointed as a research associate at
Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1986. He joined the faculty of
North Carolina State University in 1987. At NCSU, he was an assistant professor for
1987-1992, an associate professor for 1992-1997 and has been a professor since 1997.
He developed a relativistic quark model motivated by the quantum
chromodynamics (QCD) to describe the hadron structure and spectrum. He contributed to
utilize the light cone in solving relativistic bound state and scattering problems. He has
also made perturbative QCD computations of the nucleon, meson and deuteron form
factors to understand the structures of hadron and a few hadron systems at short distance
scale.
Other research accomplishments include an application of nuclear and particle
physics to astrophysics and cosmology involving neutron star and dark matter.
Page 104 He received the KOSEF fellowship from Korea in 1982, and the Dirac
Scholarship Award from the 3rd International Conference on Intersections between
Nuclear and Particle Physics in 1988. He has been a member of the International Light
Cone Advisory Committee (ILCAC) since 1999 and elected as a Secretary of ILCAC in
2006 for three-year term.
He served the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association as a
councilor (physics, 1998-2001 and 2004-2007). He was an organizer of the 11th
International Light Cone School and Workshop held at Seoul and Kyungju in 1999 and
the 10th Nuclear Physics Summer Symposium held at Seoul National University in 1997,
and published their proceedings (“New Directions in Quantum Chromodynamics”, C.-R.
Ji and D.-P. Min, editors, American Institute of Physics, 1999; “QCD Light Cone Physics
and Hadron Phenomenology”, C.-R. Ji and D.-P. Min, editors, World Scientific
Publication Co., Singapore, 1998, respectively). He has been an overseas editor of the
Journal of the Korean Physical Society since 2000. He spent the fall semester of year
1993 and the spring semester of year 2005 at Seoul National University as a Visiting
Professor of Physics.
In 2008, he was recognized as an Outstanding Referee by APS, elected as vice
chair of International Light Cone Advisory Committee Inc., elected the 38th president of
the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association, and elected president of the
Association of Korean Physicists in America for 2009-2011.
Charles E. Johnson*
Professor Johnson received his PhD in 1967 from Yale University. His major
research effort involves the investigation of fundamental properties of simple atomic and
molecular systems using precision measurement techniques. The experimental results are
appropriate for testing quantum electro-dynamics and for the determination of
fundamental constants. Among the most precise measurements in physics are those in the
area of atomic physics, Dr. Johnson uses tunable dye lasers, ion traps and computerized
resonance detectors to perform precision measurements of atomic energy levels and
magnetic g-factors of simple atomic and molecular systems. These measured quantities
are relevant to the values of fundamental constants and serve as important tests of the
theory of quantum electrodynamics. Academic and professional honors include: Phi Beta
Kappa, Yale University Ford Fellowship, Yale University Sterling Fellowship, Sigma Xi.
In 1973, he joined the NC State Department of Physics as an assistant professor.
Karen L. Johnston*
Professor Johnston received her PhD from the University of Texas in 1979, and
joined the NC State Department of Physics in 1982.
Her research was in physics education, and, in 1995, she was president of the
American Association of Physics Teachers.
Gerald H. Katzin*
Professor Katzin received his PhD from NC State in 1963 and joined the NC State
Department of Physics faculty in 1963.
His research has been in general relativity. He is currently professor emeritus of
physics.
Page 105 John Henry Kelly
Professor Kelley received his PhD in 1995 from Michigan State University after
spending five years conducting research at the National Superconducting Cyclotron
Laboratory, which is on campus at MSU. In 1995-1996 he was supported by the French
Minister of Foreign Affaires for a Sejour Scientific de Long Duree at the Institut de
Physique Nucléaire Orsay in France while performing research at the Grand Accelerateur
National d Ions Lourds (GANIL). In late 1996 he became a Research Associate at the
Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory, and in 2000 he joined the North Carolina State
University Faculty.
He performed his early experimental research using Rare Isotope beams available
at the NSCL, studying the spatial extent of nuclear halos in 8B and 11Be. John became
involved with the US Nuclear Data Evaluation Program in connection with TUNL’s data
evaluation efforts, and his group is responsible for producing evaluations of level
information in the “Energy Levels of Light Nuclei: A=3-20” series.
He is a member of the American Physical Society and Sigma Xi.
Marjorie A. Klenin*
After graduating with a BA degree in Physics from Swarthmore College in 1965, she
completed a PhD in theoretical condensed matter Physics from the University of
Pennsylvania in 1970. Her dissertation, under the direction of M. A. Jensen, was titled
“The Effects of Electric and Magnetic Fields on the Resistive Transition of a
Semiconductor”.
Following her PhD degree, she pursued research for five years in Germany, first at the
Institut Max von Laue-Paul Langevin, Munich, and later at the Universitat Saarlandes,
Saarbrucken. She then returned to the US to take positions at Brookhaven National
Laboratory and State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 1977, she joined the
Physics Department at North Carolina State University where she remained as a tenured
faculty member until the time of her retirement. Marjorie – a pioneer for her time in
pursuing a physics career - was the first woman to be appointed a faculty member in the
Physics at North Carolina State University. She lived to see the Department grow in 2007
to have the largest number of women on a Physics department faculty of any major
research university in the US.
Active in research through the 1980’s, her most cited papers date from her collaborative
work in the late 1970’s on superconductivity, quadrupolar solids, magnetic systems and
spin-glasses. Her research expertise was in theoretical condensed matter physics and
statistical physics, with particular strengths in computer modeling, Monte Carlo
simulation and neural network simulations. She collaborated with many of the condensed
matter physics groups in the department through the 1980’s. In the 1990’s she turned her
attention and talents to the development of new ways of delivering instruction in
introductory physics, particularly using computers. In 2002 she was recipient of the
Leroy and Elva Martin Award for Teaching Excellence for her innovative approaches to
teaching the algebra based course. The nomination packet quotes:
“Dr Klenin has been teaching PY 211 and PY 212, algebra-based physics for many years.
Unlike the calculus based course PY 205 and PY 208, which are taken at the same time in
the curriculum, and predominantly by engineering students with similar backgrounds and
Page 106 mathematical skill levels, the students in 211/212 have very varied backgrounds and
mathematical skills. They include premed, prevet, textiles, science education, agronomy
and horticulture. The students range from freshman to senior. Dr Klenin has though long
and hard about how to address this diversity of background and has created an unusually
rich set of computer based materials to address the needs of these different populations.
The students who are willing to work, understand the value of these resources, and come
to appreciate the care and attention she brings to her instructional obligations”
Matthew Adam Kohlmyer
Professor Kohlmyer received his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005,
but spent a number of years conducting his thesis research at NC State University under
the supervision of Ruth Chabay and Bruce Sherwood. At both Carnegie Mellon and NC
State, he gained experience with Chabay and Sherwood’s innovative Matter &
Interactions introductory physics curriculum, where he studied the curriculum’s effects
on students’ skills in complex problem solving and computer modeling. From 2006 to
2008 he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was
involved in introducing and implementing Matter & Interactions, as well as evaluating its
effectiveness. In 2008, he returned to NC State as the first ever Teaching Assistant
Professor in the Department of Physics and now serves as course coordinator for the
205M/208M introductory physics sequence.
Jacqueline Krim
Professor Krim received her PhD in experimental condensed matter physics from
the University of Washington in 1984. After a year-long appointment as a North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) postdoctoral Fellow at the University d’Aix-Marseille II,
France, she joined the physics department at Northeastern University at the assistant
professor level. She joined NC State University in 1998 as a Full Professor in Physics,
with a subsequent appointment as associate member of the Electrical and Computer
Engineering department.
Her research interests include solid-film growth processes and topologies at
submicron length scales, nanotribology (the study of friction, wear, and lubrication at
nanometer length and time scales) and liquid-film wetting phenomena. Her research
accomplishments include the first experimental documentation of phononic mechanisms
for sliding friction and the discovery of superconductivity-dependent friction. Other
significant accomplishments include demonstrating that van der Waals forces can control
the thickness of wetting layer, important as the only uncontested experiment which
demonstrates this common assumption, and applications of scanning probe microscopy to
self-affine fractal surfaces, important for their wide applicability.
Krim has served on the editorial boards for Tribology Transactions, Tribology
Letters, and on the advisory editorial board for Surface Science. She has published and
lectured widely on the topic of the atomic-scale origins of friction, and is the author of
numerous invited review articles on this topic. She is a Fellow of the American Physical
Society, and the American Vacuum Society, a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer for 20012003, and the recipient of an NSF Presidential Young Investigator award in 1986 and
received the NCSU Alumni Outstanding Research Award in 2001. Her research on the
molecular origins of friction was featured as a cover story for the October 1996 edition of
Scientific American.
Page 107 Fernando Fred Lado
Professor Lado received his PhD degree in 1964 from the University of Florida
with a dissertation on liquid state theory directed by Professor Arthur A. Broyles. After
some additional postdoctoral work with Professor Broyles’ group in Gainesville, in 1965
he joined the pioneering research group of William W. Wood at the Los Alamos
Scientific Laboratory, which was developing large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of
liquids made possible by the excellent computer facilities at LASL. He joined the faculty
of North Carolina State University as Assistant Professor in 1968.
At NCSU he continued work in the theory of liquids, but shifted focus from large
numerical simulations to the semi-analytic alternative of nonlinear integral equations.
These have the advantage of greatly reduced computing needs, obtained however at the
cost of some approximation. He developed a particular approximation known as the
Reference-Hypernetted Chain (RHNC) equation, which currently affords one of the more
exact routes to liquid state properties from the analytic (i.e., nonsimulation) side. In
general, his work shows particular concern with novel numerical analysis techniques,
including numerical Hankel transforms for systems in two dimensions and speciallydesigned orthogonal polynomials for nonuniform fluids in external fields. During his
years at NCSU he taught a wide selection of the courses offered by the Physics
Department to both graduates and undergraduates.
His 1964 doctoral dissertation won the Sigma Xi Research Award at the
University of Florida. At NCSU he was selected for an Outstanding Teacher Award and
recognized by the D.H. Hill Library for an “NC State Citation Classic.” He was a Senior
Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad de Santiago, Spain, and a Visiting Scientist at the
International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, and the Instituto de Química
Física Rocasolano in Madrid, Spain.
Forrest W. Lancaster*
Professor Forrest W. Lancaster (PhD, Duke University, microwave spectroscopy),
joined the NC State Department of Physics as assistant professor in 1930.
Davide Lazzati
Professor Lazzati received his PhD in Physics in 2001 from the Università degli
Studi in Milan, Italy. He spent 4 years as a postdoc in Cambridge (UK) and four years at
JILA at the University of Colorado, before joining the faculty at NC State University in
2008 as an assistant professor.
He works mainly in theoretical high energy astrophysics, focusing his research
on the study of Gamma-Ray Bursts, the brightest and most mysterious explosions in the
present day Universe. His work ranges from the study of the physics of the compact
engine that powers the burst to the late stages of the GRB event, when a relativistic shock
propagates through the interstellar medium at large distances from the progenitor star.
His main contributions to the field are the discovery and the interpretation of the linear
polarization of the afterglow photons, the prediction of the existence of X-ray afterglows
in the class of short bursts, and the study of time dependent effects in the prompt phase of
bursts. He was among the first to realize the importance of time dependent effects in the
interaction of the burst radiation with the interstellar material.
Page 108 He received his “Laurea” (M.Sc.) in Astronomy at the Università degli Studi in
Milan, Italy and was awarded the Gratton Prize for the best PhD thesis in Astronomy
defended in Italy in the academic years 1999/2000 and 2000/2001.
Dean Lee
Professor Lee received his PhD in 1998 from Harvard University in theoretical
particle physics as a student of Howard Georgi. From 1998 to 2001, he was a
postdoctoral researcher with the nuclear, particle, and gravitational theory group at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 2001 he joined the faculty at NC State as an
assistant professor and became an associate professor in 2007. His general research
interests are in quantum field theory and quantum many-body theory. More specifically
he has worked on effective field theory, lattice methods for many-body physics, quantum
Monte Carlo, nuclear and neutron matter, cold atomic Fermi gases, spontaneous
symmetry breaking, Bose-Einstein condensation, and superfluidity. Since 2004 he has
collaborated with members of the nuclear theory group at Bonn University to combine
computational lattice methods and the framework of effective field theory for low-energy
nuclear physics.
Shuang Fang Lim
Following completion of a Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, UK, 2004,
Shuang Fang Lim served in a postdoctoral Research Position at Princeton University
from 2004-2008. Her work there focused on upconverting nanoparticlels (UCNPs) and
the synthesis, photophysics and bio-applications of nanoparicles. Following this
assignment, she then served as in a postdoctoral position for one year at NC State
University and then in a Research Assistant professor position for three years before
accepting an Assistant Professor appointment staring in the fall of 2012.
Lim’s work focuses on DNA methylation analysis and chromatin histone
modifications of rare earth doped nanoparticles. These particles emit in the visible when
excited in the Near Infrared. The research includes synthesis of the nanoparticles, bioconjugation, their photophysics and bio-applications such as biosensors and biotherapeutic agents. She also works on the epigenetic mapping of DNA and chromatin.
Her efforts are concentrated on techniques to identify specific methylation and
acetylation markers at genomic resolution to enhance upconversion emission through
plasmonic coupling to metal nanofeatures. This work has strong promise in applications
of UCNPs as biosensors in microarrays and UCNPs as biotherapeutics in photodynamic
therapy
Wenchang Lu
Professor Lu received his PhD in 1993 from Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
As research associate, he visited Max-Planck-Institute from 1994-1997 and Muenster
University from 1997-1999. He joined NC State University in 1999 as a research
associate and became research assistant professor in 2003.
His research activities are focused on the first-principles studies of nanoscale
systems, such as molecular electronics, organics/semiconductor, and organics/metal
nanostructrues. The structural, electronic, optical, and quantum transport properties are
investigated within density functional theory and beyond. He also developed O(N)
Page 109 methodology for electronic and quantum transport calculations to deal with systems
consisting of thousands of atoms in petascale supercomputers.
He is a member of American Physical Society, Research Material Society and
Sigma Xi.
Gerald Lucovsky
Professor Gerald Lucovsky has worked on thin film gate dielectrics and surface
passivation for Si and compound semiconductors by remote plasma processing for more
than 25 ars, with state of the art results for ultra-thin Si oxyitride devices. This approach
has been applied to the passivation of GaN surfaces with excellent results, and is being
extended to ternary III-V’s as well.
Professor Lucovsky received his BS and MA degrees in Physics from the
University of Rochester in 1956 and 1958, respectively, and his PhD degree in Physics
from Temple University in 1960. He was employed by Philco Corporation from 1958
through 1965 as a Senior Research Specialist, where he worked on photo-diodes, and
GaAs light-emitting-diodes and lasers. He fabricated the first photo-voltaic device in
GaAs. He was employed by Xerox Corporation in Webster, NY from 1965 to 1970, and
at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in Palo Alto, CA, where he was manager of the
General Sciences Laboratory and a Senior Research Fellow. During this time he worked
on amorphous semiconductors including chalcogenides and hydrogenated amorphous Si,
as well as non-crystalline oxides. He joined the Faculty of NC State University in 1980,
and has been there since that time.
Professor Lucovsky is a University Professor of Physics at North Carolina State
University, and is affiliated with the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering,
and Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is a major contributor to development of
remote plasma processing, and has been elected to Fellowship in the American Vacuum
Society (AVS) “for contributions to the science and technology of plasma processing and
infrared spectroscopy, and their creative applications for advancing the capabilities of
electronic materials.” He is also an honorary member of the AVS “In recognition of His
Scientific Contributions and for His Service to the Society.” He is has also been named
an EDS Distinguished Lecturer a by the Electron Device Society, EDS, of the IEEE.
Additionally, he has also been a Mott Lecturer at the International Conference on
Amorphous and Microcrystalline Semiconductors, where he addressed non-crystalline
dielectrics. He has contributed two chapters to books on plasma processing, and three
dealing with advanced dielectrics for aggressively-scaled CMOS devices. He is coauthoring a monograph for Cambridge University Press titled: “Dielectrics for Advanced
Microelectronic Devices: Electronic Structure and Device Properties,” which addresses
Si as well as compound semiconductor interface formation and surface passivation. Of
particular significance is the development of remote plasma processing methods
providing separate and independent control of interface and bulk dielectric properties. He
has pioneered on-line Auger electron spectroscopy for characterization of the initial
stages of interface formation and film deposition, controlling composition profiles at the
monolayer level; e.g., nitrogen incorporation which reduces tunneling, increases
reliability, and eliminates parasitic semiconductor substrate reactions during film
deposition. He has a long history of developing novel spectroscopic approaches to
interface characterization including optical second harmonic generation, synchrotron Xray photoemission spectroscopy and vacuum UV spectroscopic ellipsometry. This
Page 110 research has been important in providing the first definitive spectroscopic evidence for
intrinsic, pre-existing defects in transition metal oxides.
J. Thomas Lynn*
Professor Lynn received the MS degree in physics from Ohio State University in
1940 and joined the NC State Department of Physics in 1943.
He served as acting head of the department for two one-year terms, 1961-1962
and 1964-1965. He was graduate administrator of the department for many years.
Edward R. Manring*
Professor Manring received the PhD from Ohio State University and joined the
NC State Department of Physics in 1964.
His research area was atmospheric physics, and he conducted experiments from
many years with grant support from NASA.
David H. Martin*
Professor Martin (MS, University of Wisconsin) joined the NC State University
Department of Physics in 1958. He served for many years as a devoted teacher. He was
also an artist of high quality, who specialized in water color painting.
Gail C. McLaughlin
Professor McLaughlin received her PhD in 1996 from the University of California
San Diego. She was a postdoctoral research associate first at the Institute for Nuclear
Theory at the University of Washington from 1996-1998, and then at TRIUMF from
1998-2000.
From 2000-2001, she was a research scientist at the State University of New
York, Stony Brook. She joined NC State University in 2001 as an Assistant Professor,
and became an Associate Professor in 2005.
She works in the areas of nuclear and particle astrophysics. This includes
neutrinos in astrophysical environments, both their effect on the environment as well as
the potential for detecting the neutrinos which make their way to earth. It includes also
element synthesis, the study of how neutrons and protons combine to make elements in
particular astrophysical environments. She is known for her work on neutrino interactions
during the formation of the rapid neutron capture elements, theoretical studies of the
detection of supernova neutrinos, and work on theories which create a neutrino magnetic
moment.
She received an Outstanding Junior faculty Award from the Department of
Energy, 2002-2007, and was also offered an NSF CAREER award in 2002.
She has served on a number of committees which advise on policy nationally,
such as the Nuclear Physics committee for Implementation the Long Range Plan, the
committee which created the report “A Vision for Nuclear Theory”, and the executive
committee of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics. She is a member of the American
Physical Society, the American Astronomical Society, Sigma Xi and AAAS. She is a
member of the editorial board for Journal of Physics G.
Jefferson S. Meares*
Professor Jefferson S. Meares (MS, NC State), joined the NC State Department of
Physics faculty in 1923, and was acting department head from 1946 to 1949.
Page 111 Jasper Durham Memory
Professor Memory received the BS with highest honors from Wake Forest in
1956, and the PhD from UNC Chapel Hill in 1960, where he was John Motley Morehead
Graduate Scholar. He graduated from the Institute for Educational Management at
Harvard in 1989.
He was successively Assistant and Associate Professor at the University of South
Carolina 1960-64. At NC State University, he was Associate Professor 1964-67,
Professor 1967-98, Professor Emeritus 1998-, Associate Dean of PAMS 1973-82, Vice
Provost and Dean of the Graduate School 1982-1986, and Vice President for Research of
the UNC System 1986-98.
His research involved NMR of aromatic compounds and polymeric materials. He
was author or coauthor of three books and more than a hundred other publications on
these subjects, supervised the research of thirteen PhD students, and was Principal or Coprincipal Investigator of grants from NSF, NIH, NASA and the Army Research Office.
As NCSU Graduate Dean, he established the quality review procedures for its graduate
programs, and helped increase tuition support for out-of-state graduate students. During
his term as VP for Research of the UNC System, its rank in federal support for research
increased from sixth to third among state university systems, and its share of total federal
R&D support to academic institutions increased from 1.3% to 2.3%. He was ex officio
chair of UNC System Councils on Biotechnology, International Programs, Marine
Sciences, and Research.
He was elected Fellow of the APS in 1977, and was Chair of the GRE Board in
1989. At NCSU he became a member of the Academy of Outstanding Teachers in 1967,
won a Sigma Xi Research award in 1970, and received the Distinguished Service Award
in Race Relations in 1985.
He was NCSU Student-Faculty Open Squash Champion in 1965, 1966, and 1967,
and played varsity tennis for Wake Forest 1952-56.
Arthur C. “Buck” Menius*
Professor Arthur C. “Buck” Menius (PhD, University of North Carolina,
theoretical nuclear physics), served on the physics faculty of Clemson in the early 1940s,
then became senior physicist and head of the Battery Group of the Proximity Fuse Project
at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory toward the end of World War II. He
joined the NC State Department of Physics in 1949, where he became deeply involved in
the design, implementation, and operation of the first non-government nuclear reactor in
the United States. From 1953 to 1955 he was graduate administrator of the Department of
Physics. In 1956-1957, he was assistant to the dean of engineering, and in 1956 became
head of the physics department. In 1960, he was the founding dean of the College of
Physical and Mathematical Sciences, a position he held until his retirement in 1981, 21
years later, having guided the college to a position of strength and prominence.
Professor Menius served widely as a consultant on many scientific issues. A
number of these are: Sverdrup and Parcel (nuclear aircraft), 1950-1951; Propulsion
Monsanto Chemical (reactor design), 1951-1953; Babcock and Wilcox and American
Machine and Foundry (reactor design), 1954-1956; United States Army Missile
Command (lasers, missiles, and instrumentation), 1956-1974; United States Atomic
Page 112 Energy Commission (1957-1959); Pan American Airways (range development), 19621968; Industrial Nucleonics Corporation, 1962-1972; and Frankford Arsenal, 1968-1972.
He received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Catawba College in1969,
and was a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He served on the following Boards:
Aeronautical Electronics, Inc. (1957-1961), Research Triangle Institute (1972), and
Adams-Mills Company, and was the NC State Council Representative of Oak Ridge
Associated Universities (1962-1969).
Lubos Mitas*
Professor Mitas joined the NC State Department of Physics after spending several
years as a theorist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of
Illinois. He is a member of the Center for High Performance Simulation specializing in
computational and theoretical approaches for nanoscience/materials, biomolecular and
quantum systems. His work includes many-body computational methods such as
quantum Monte Carlo simulations of electronic structures. He is known for pioneering
high-accuracy calculations of atoms, molecules,clusters and solids, analysis of manybody nodes of fermion states and applications of pairing wave functions to electronic
structure. He has also been co-developer of the RST method—a multidimensional spatial
interpolation provides methods for transformation of values representing landscape
phenomena measured at scattered points to 2D, 3D and 4D grids which are suitable for
modeling, visualization and simulations of geospatial processes.
Gary Earl Mitchell
Professor Mitchell received his PhD in 1962 from Florida State University. After
two years as a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University, he became an assistant
professor at Columbia. In 1968 he joined North Carolina State University as an Associate
Professor and became a full professor in 1974.
His research has focused on experimental nuclear physics, with an early emphasis
on the fine structure of isobaric analogue states. Since the 1970’s he has specialized on
aspects of random matrix theory; He provided the first verification of an early predictions
by Dyson on the effect of symmetry breaking on level statistics. He obtained the first
determination of the effect of symmetry breaking on transition strength distributions. He
was very active in the measurement and explanation of the large parity violation observed
in neutron resonances – a factor of 106 greater than the nominal weak interaction value.
He received the Senior Scientist Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
(1975), as well as, a renewal of this award (1997). He was appointed Alumni Graduate
Distinguished Professor at NCSU. He received the Jesse Beams Award of the American
Physical Society in 1997. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society. He has been a
guest scientist at Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg; University of Munster; Bochum
University; Fudan University, Shanghai; Centro Internacional de Ciencas, Cuernavaca;
Technical University Darmstadt; Sao Paulo University; Charles University, Prague;
Brookhaven National Laboratory; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory.
Directed or co-directed 54 PhD students. Director of Graduate Programs, NCSU
Department of Physics 1978-1997. Associate Head, NCSU Department of Physics 19831997. Associate Director of Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory.
Marvin K. Moss*
Page 113 Professor Moss received his PhD from NC State University in 1962, having
joined the department in 1959. His early research was in field theory. After several years
in the NC State Department of Physics, he became a high level administrator in the
United States Office of Naval Research, and was subsequently provost of the University
of North Carolina Wilmington.
J. Richard Mowat*
Professor Mowat received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley
in 1969 and joined the NC State Department of Physics in 1976.
His research has dealt with atomic physics, and more recently, with the creation
and testing of instructional material for online physics courses.
Raymond L. Murray*
Professor Raymond L. Murray (PhD, University of Tennessee, nuclear physics)
joined the NC State Department of Physics in 1950. Previous to that, he had been senior
physicist at Carbide and Carbon Chemicals at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He
became head of the department in 1960, when the College of Physical and Mathematical
Sciences was formed, and Professor Menius moved from head of the department to dean
of the new college. Professor Murray was the head until 1962, when he accepted the
headship of the newly established Department of Nuclear Engineering in the College of
Engineering, which had taken over operation of the university’s nuclear reactor.
Professor Murray was the author of several books, including the standard textbook for
nuclear engineering.
Robert J. Nemanich*
Professor Nemanich was a professor in the Department of Physics and associate
member of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He began his college
education at Joliet Junior College and completed BS and MS degrees in physics at
Northern Illinois University. He completed his PhD at the University of Chicago in 1976
and joined the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. At Xerox PARC, he was a project
leader in the General Sciences Laboratory and in the Integrated Circuit Laboratory. In
1986, he moved to NC State, where he was involved with various university committees,
and in 2000 served as the acting associate dean of research. He has been the recipient of
the NC State Alumni Association’s Outstanding Research Award (1994) and the
Distinguished Graduate Professorship (2001).
Nemanich has a long-standing involvement with the Materials Research Society
and served as president in 1998. He was a meeting chair of the 1989 Fall Meeting of the
MRS and has been a co-organizer of six symposia. Nemanich served as the 2003-2004
president of the International Union of Materials Research Societies. He is a Fellow of
the American Physical Society and has served as a member-at-large on the executive
committee of the Division of Materials Physics. Nemanich served a number of years as
the Editor-in-Chief of the research journal Diamond and Related Materials.
His research has been primarily in the area of electronic materials, and has
focused on growth, processing and characterization of surfaces, interfaces and
nanostructures. His early work related atomic structure to properties of disordered and
nanocrystalline materials, and multilayered and epitaxial structures. More recently, he has
combined surface analysis techniques, scanning probe techniques, and photo electron
Page 114 emission microscopy (PEEM) to explore the dynamics and properties of nanostructures
on surfaces. His research has centered on carbon-based materials, silicon-based materials,
polar oxides and wide band gap nitrides, and has been extended through collaborations to
photoresponse of melanosomes and toxicity of nanotubes in epidermal keratinocytes. He
has co-edited five conference proceedings, and co-authored three patents and over 350
scientific publications. To date, over 40 graduate students, ten postdoctoral colleagues,
eight diploma students from Europe, and over 50 undergraduates have been involved
with research in his laboratory. His research has always emphasized interdisciplinary
collaborative approaches.
Hubert L. Owen*
Professor Owen (BS, Wake Forest University) joined the NC State Department of
Physics in 1962, having previously served as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force. He served the
department for many years as teacher and administrator.
Michael A. Paesler
Professor Paesler earned his BA degree at Beloit College and his PhD from the
University of Chicago in 1975. His PhD experimental research on disordered solids was
undertaken in the laboratory of Hellmut Fritzsche. In 1976 he was a Guest Scientist at the
Max- Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung in Stuttgart, working with Professor Hans
Queisser on the photo-Hall effect in crystalline gallium arsenide. Thereafter he assumed a
position as a Post- doctoral Research Fellow in the Division of applied Sciences at
Harvard University working with Professor William Paul studying
hydrogenated amorphous silicon. Professor Paesler came to NC State in 1980 where he is
now a Professor. From 1997 to 2005 he served as the Director of Graduate Programs and
in 2005 became Physics Department Head serving in the latter capacity through 2011.
Professor Paesler began his research program at NC State investigating photostructural changes in disordered solids. His particular focus was on photo-darkening of
amorphous chalcogenide glasses. His use of Raman spectroscopy in these studies led to
his involvement with the university’s Precision Center, PEC, where he used microRaman techniques to study stresses in machined semiconductors. At the PEC he and his
students studied the Raman spectra of diamond-turned amorphous Germanium, modeling
the stress profile induced by the machining process. As the spatial resolution needs of
these investigations became finer, his program was directed towards near-field optics. For
several years, his group developed near-field techniques and used near-field microscopes
to address a number of problems. Students working with Professor Paesler in his nearfield optics laboratory achieved several firsts including the first spectroscopic image with
resolution beyond the diffraction limit and the first near-field image taken in Raman
scattered light. Professor Paesler was the chairman of the Second International
Conference on Near-field Optics held in Raleigh in 1992. For several years, Professor
Paesler collaborated with paleontologists in studies of paleo-physics. One study involved
an investigation of energy balance in Mesozoic atmospheres. In another, Professor
Paesler and colleagues modeled phanerozoic atmospheres based on statistical studies of
spore morphology and size, using models of spore motion based on the transport
properties of the atmosphere. Most recently, Professor Paesler has returned to investigate
chalcogenide glasses. He studies phase change alloys, systems show that remarkable
differences between the amorphous and crystalline states that can be cyclically accessed
with optical and/or current pulses. In this program, Profesor Paesler uses Extended X-Ray
Page 115 Absorption Fine Structure, or EXAFS, techniques to monitor local bonding environments
in alloys in the germanium-antimony-tellurium ternary system.
In his years at NC State, Professor Paesler has taken scholarly leaves, assuming
faculty positions in a number of universities and institutes. These include the Physics
Departments at Université de Franche Comte in Besançon, France; Phillips Universität,
in Marburg, Germany; Dresden Universität in Dresden, Germany; and at the HahnMeitner-Institut in Berlin, Germany.
At NC State Professor Paesler has taught at all levels from beginning
undergraduate courses to advanced graduate courses. He has developed two courses,
PY133 and PY 893. The former – Conceptual Physics: Optics – is an algebra-based
course in optics designed for non-science majors. The latter course is designed to help
graduating doctoral and masters’ students finish their degree programs and move
smoothly into the post-graduate world.
Professor Paesler is a member of Phi Beta Kappa (Beloit) and Sigma Chi
(Harvard). He is a member of the NC State Academy of Outstanding Teachers and is a
Fellow of the American Physical Society, APS. He directed the research that led to the
APS Apker Award of Charles Brabec in 1990. Professor Paesler serves on the APS’s
Graduate Education Committee and was instrumental in drafting the joint APS/American
Association of Physics Teachers Report on Graduate Education, 2006.
Jae Y. Park*
Professor Park received his PhD in 1962 from the University of North Carolina in
1962, and joined the NC State Department of Physics that year.
Professor Park’s research is in theoretical nuclear physics. An overview of his
work appears in the book Nuclear Molecules (World Scientific Publishing Company,
1995), which he co-authored. He is professor emeritus of physics.
George W. Parker*
Professor Parker received his PhD from the University of South Carolina in 1965,
and had joined the NC State Department of Physics in 1964.
His research work was in nuclear magnetic resonance. In 1999, he received the
first annual Faculty Career Achievement Award from the College of Physical and
Mathematical Sciences.
Richard R. Patty
Professor Patty received his PhD degree from Ohio State University in 1960,
remained at OSU for one year as a post-doc, served in the US Army 1961-62, was
appointed Senior Scientist at Aeronutronic Division of Ford Motor Company (Irvine,
CA) 1962-63, and joined the physics department at NC State in 1964. His research
involved the transmission of infrared radiation in the atmosphere and measurement of
airglow from the upper atmosphere. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and
a member of the American Physical Society, the American Association of Physics
Teachers, Sigma Xi, Sigma Pi Sigma, and the North Carolina Academy of Science.
Offices held include Chair (Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society,
1998), Chair (NC Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers, 1997-98),
President (Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society, 1998), and Chair
(Physics Section of the NC Academy of Science, 1966, 1976, 1977). Within the
university, he served on numerous committees at the department, college and university
Page 116 levels, served as chair of the NCSU Academy of Outstanding Teachers (1977, 1998), and
served four two-year terms on the Faculty Senate. Awards received include NCSU
Outstanding Teaching Awards (1969, 1974, and 1983), Alumni Award for Excellence in
Teaching (1974), Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professorship (1990-1992), UNC
Board of Governors Teaching Award (1999), and The Alexander Quarles Holladay
Medal for Excellence (1995). Professor Patty served as head of the physics department
1976-1995, a period of significant development for the physics department and retired in
1996. Since retirement he has continued to teach on a part-time basis (1996-present) and
served as interim head of the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
(1999-2001).
Thomas P. Pearl
Professor Pearl received his PhD in 2000 from the University of Chicago in the
Department of Chemistry. After having spent 2000-2003 at the Pennsylvania State
University as a post-doctoral fellow, he joined the faculty of North Carolina State
University in 2003 as an Assistant Professor.
His research has principally involved the study of interactions between surface
and adsorbate properties that induce morphological transitions, change electronic
characteristics, and determine interfacial growth and ordering. He has had a particular
interest in utilizing scanning probe microscopies to elucidate mechanisms for surface
driven phenomena, single molecule behavior, molecular junction characteristics, as well
as the development of novel instrumentation for interrogating nanoscale structures at the
atomic and molecular level.
He received a Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award in 2004 from
the Oak Ridge Associated Universities. In 2006, he was granted a NCSU Faculty
Research and Professional Development Award and an American Chemical Society,
Petroleum Research Fund, Type G Award for further support of developing an
independent research program.
Russell Philbrick
Professor Philbrick earned BS 1962, MS 1964, and PhD 1966 degrees in Physics
from N.C. State University while performing early laser investigations. After completion
of his PhD, he served in the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory (now AFRL) for
21 years in military and civilian positions where he developed rocket, satellite, and
remote sensing techniques for investigations of the composition, structure, and dynamics
of the atmosphere and ionosphere. He was PI for eight satellite experiments flown
between 1967 and 1976, and several major campaigns using rocket and balloon payloads;
these investigations provided results that are the basis for several models of the
atmosphere and ionosphere that are still in use. Dr. Philbrick joined Penn State University
in 1988 as Professor of Electrical Engineering and lectures in areas of optics, space
physics, icosecondssc, and laser remote sensing. For the past 30 years, he has been one of
the leaders in developing lidar remote sensing techniques, and his research group has
investigated atmospheric properties and processes using lidar for the DoD, EPA, DOE,
NSF, and other agencies. His group developed and tested the first operational prototype
Raman lidar for meteorological profiling on Navy ships, and they have conducted major
fields programs investigating the physical/chemical processes controlling the evolution of
air pollution events. Dr. Philbrick was the principal technical advisor on lidar for the ITT
Space Systems Division during the development and testing of the ANGEL system; now
Page 117 used to provide aircraft lidar monitoring of natural gas pipelines. He has served as
principal advisor for more than 50 graduate degrees and 20 senior honors theses, as well
as the faculty advisor for several student projects that prepared and launched instruments
on space shuttle, rockets, and satellites. The results of his research activities are reported
in more than 200 publications. He will take a faculty position at N.C. State in January,
2009.
Stephen Reynolds
Professor Reynolds received his AB degree magna cum laude from Harvard in
1971, and MA and PhD degrees from the University of California, Berkeley in 1973 and
1980, all in physics. At Harvard, he served as concertmaster and assistant conductor of
the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra. During his time in graduate school, he worked also as a
professional violinist, performing regularly with the Oakland Symphony, San Francisco
Ballet Orchestra, and new-music ensembles. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the
Department of Astronomy at the University of Virginia until 1982, and a post-doctoral
associate at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (Charlottesville, VA) from 1982
to 1985. In 1985 he joined the faculty of North Carolina State University, charged with
founding a research group in astrophysics. He was promoted to Associate Professor in
1990 and Full Professor in 1995.
Professor Reynolds specializes in high-energy astrophysics, with primary
applications to supernova remnants with and without pulsars, and the processes by which
particles are accelerated to very high energies in these objects. He has also applied these
ideas to active galactic nuclei and to outflows in star-forming regions. His identification
and modeling of synchrotron emission from ultrarelativistic electrons in supernovaremnant shock waves has produced the most direct evidence for the sites of cosmic-ray
acceleration, and is now widely used in the astrophysical community. He has supported
his theoretical work with observations with radio telescopes and orbiting X-ray and
infrared observatories. This research has been supported by NSF and NASA continuously
since 1987. He has held appointments as a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Arcetri
Observatory of the University of Florence. At NC State, Professor Reynolds has taught
18 different courses at all levels, from qualitative courses for non-scientists, through core
undergraduate and graduate courses, to courses for advanced graduate students.
Professor Reynolds is an Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor, and was
the nominee from the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences for the Board of
Governors’ Teaching Award in 2005. He is a third-generation member of Phi Beta
Kappa, and served as President of NC State’s Zeta Chapter in 1997—98. He is a Fellow
of the American Physical Society.
Robert Riehn*
Professor Riehn received his PhD from Cambridge University in 2003, was a
research associate at Princeton University from 2003 to 2006, and joined the NC State
Department of Physics as assistant professor in 2006.
His research is in biophysics and soft-condensed matter, and deals with the
physics of biological molecules in nano-scale environments.
John S. Risley
Page 118 Professor Risley graduated in 1965 from the University of Washington with a BS
degree in physics. He received his MS degree in 1966 and PhD in 1973, also from the
University of Washington. His thesis research was on electron detachment of negative H
atoms in collisions with atomic and molecular targets. After a half year as a visiting
assistant professor at the University of Nebraska, he joined the physics faculty at North
Carolina State University in 1976 advancing to professor of physics in 1984.
For over 20 years, he conducted research in atomic collisions investigating the
excited states of collisionally produced hydrogen atoms and benchmark electron collision
cross sections for a new radiometric standard in the euv. The density matrix and electric
dipole moment for excited n=2, 3 hydrogen atoms were determined for fast collisions of
protons with gas targets. He applied electric fields in the collision region to Stark mix the
excited states of H, thereby affecting the total intensity and polarization of the emitted
Lyman-and Balmer-alpha radiation. By measuring the Stokes parameters and fitting a
density matrix to the observed signals, he discovered that axial electric fields allow the
determination of the electric dipole moment of the n=2 or 3 state immediately after its
formation. Transverse electric fields, which allow the radiation to become circularly
polarized, revealed, for the first time, information about the currents in the hydrogen
atom. He developed the concept of a radiometric standard for the euv (30 to 150 nm)
region using electron impact photo-emission cross sections. A critical feat in this
experiment was the calibration of the sensitivity of a spectrometer and detector for
radiometric measurements using synchrotron radiation from the National Institute of
Standards storage ring, SURF II, in Gaithersburg, MD. A large multi-adjustable
manipulator was constructed for UHV operation which allowed the spectrometer to be
oriented at the proper angles for mapping the sensitivity of the grating in front of the
synchrotron beam port.
He has served on professional committees throughout his career including being
the secretary for the International Conference on the Physics of Electronic and Atomic
Collisions from 1977 to 1989. He received a Distinguished Service Citation from the
American Association of Physics Teachers in 1992. He is a Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society.
Starting in the early 1980s, he conducted research on the utilization and
effectiveness of computer technology to teach physics. He has written numerous reviews
of educational physics software programs, was the founding editor of Physics Academic
Software in cooperation with the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical
Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers. With members in his Physics
Education Research group, he established WebAssign in 1997 as an internationally
known online homework, quizzing and testing service for math and science at North
Carolina State University and successfully spun it off to NC State’s Centennial Campus
in 2003 as a private company where he is the founding president and CEO. Currently
more than 2 million students and teachers have used the service.
Christopher Martin Roland
Professor Roland received his PhD in Physics in 1989 from McGill University.
He then spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto and at the
AT&T Bell Laboratories Murray Hill facility. He joined NC State as an Assistant
Professor in 1993, became an Associate Professor in 1998, and Professor in 2002. He is
currently a member of the Center for High Performance Simulations (ChiPS).
Page 119 Prof. Roland’s research interests have been centered primarily in the area of
theoretical Condensed Matter Physics. His initial work focused on understanding
dynamics and growth phenomena in a variety of material systems, such as the kinetics of
first order phase transitions, homoepitaxy of semiconductors, and the growth of carbon
nanotubes.
More recently, research has focused on understanding quantum transport in
molecular electronic systems for nanoscale applications and understanding select
biomolecular systems. The work has a strong computational bend to it, employing a
variety of numerical techniques aimed at understanding physical phenomena over
different length and time scales.
He received an NSF CAREER award in 1995.
J. E. (Jack) Rowe
Professor Rowe received his PhD from Brown University in 1971, and joined the
NC State Physics Department in 1996, where he serves as a Research Professor.
His research is in the area of nanostructures with respect to interfaces for
electronics, and involves, among other methods, scanning tunneling microscopy, atomic
force microscopy, soft X-ray photoemission and Raman scattering.
Maria Celeste Sagui
Professor Sagui received her PhD in 1995 from the University of Toronto. She
then spent two years at McGill University as a Postdoctoral Fellow. In 1997, she first
came to NC State as a Lecturer and Visiting Scientist. During this time, she also became
a Research Fellow at the National Institute of Environmental and Health Science
(NIEHS) in the Research Triangle Park. In 2000, she joined NC State’s Physics
Department as an Assistant Professor, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2005.
She is a member of NC State’s Genomics Center, the Center for High Performancs
Simulation (ChiPS) and continues in part with an IPA position in the Laboratory of
Structural Biology at NIEHS.
While Prof. Sagui’s initial research interests centered on understanding the
dynamics of Condensed Matter systems, almost all of the current research is focused on
biomolecular simulations. In terms of methodological developments, work has focused
on the development of algorithms for the fast and efficient, large-scale simulation of the
electrostatic interactions, which are the main computational bottleneck in current
biomolecular simulations. Other interests include the development of multiscale
algorithms, development of polarizable force fields, DNA, icosecondss antibiotics, and
protein-nucleic acid interactions.
Prof. Sagui received a SLOAN Postdoctoral Fellowship in Computational
Biology in 1998, an NSF POWRE award (also 1998), and an NSF CAREER award in
2004. She was also NC State’s 2002 nominee for the David and Lucile Packard
Foundation Fellowship.
Dale Edward Sayers*
Professor Sayers received his PhD at the University of Washington in 1971, He
subsequently worked as a research engineer at Boeing Aerospace, and joined the NC
State Department of Physics in 1976, where he remained until his untimely death of a
heart attack in 2004.
Page 120 He engaged in sabbatical leave as visiting professor at the Universite de Paris-Sud
in Orsay, France in 1982-1983, and the Joseph Fourier Unversite in Grenoble, France, in
1996. He also was a visiting scientist at ESRP in Grenoble in 2000 and the ALS in
Berkeley, California, in 2000.
His PhD research centered on the development of a new analytical technique,
extended x-ray fine structure, or EXAFS. The first EXAFS paper, written by Sayers,
Stern and Farrell Lytle in 1971, opened a new field of research that completed its 12th biannual meeting in 2003 in Sweden.
His scientific interests focused primarily on applications of synchrotron radiationbased techniques to the study of complex materials. He applied the EXAFS technique to
the study of many systems including amorphous alloys, the semiconductor-metal
interface, catalysts, electrochemical systems, environmentally contaminated systems and
metalloproteins. Other techniques that he used and developed included anomalous
scattering and x-ray diffraction, fluorescence microprobe, and microscopy. In recent
years he was part of a team that discovered and is applying a new x-ray imaging modality
called Diffraction Enhanced Imaging or DEI. Most recently, Dale was actively pursuing
investigations to realize the great promise of DEI in medical research as a clinical tool for
mammography, osteoarthritis and bone density studies.
He received numerous international and local research awards including the
Bertram Eugene Warren Award (American Crystallographic Association); the Case
Centennial Scholar Award (Case Western Reserve University); the Outstanding
Achievement Award of the International XAFS Society; the NC State University
Libraries Faculty Award; and the NC State Alumni Association Outstanding Research
Award, and was a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Thomas M. Schaefer
Professor Schaefer received his PhD in 1992 from the University of Regensburg
(Germany). From 1992-1998 he held postdoctoral positions at the State University of
New York at Stony Brook and the National Institute for Nuclear Theory at the University
of Washington. From 1998-1999 he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton before joining the Faculty at Stony Brook as an Assistant Professor in 2000. He
was promoted to the rank of associate professor in 2003 and joined the faculty of North
Carolina State University the same year. He was promoted to full professor in 2006.
From 2000-2004 he was also a fellow at the Riken-BNL research center at Brookhaven
National Laboratory.
Schaefer studies Quantumchromodynamics (QCD) and the behavior of matter
under extreme conditions. This includes the behavior of matter at very high temperature
(T>1010 Kelvin), which is relevant to the very early Universe and to high energy
collisions of Heavy Ions, as well as matter at low temperature but density in excess of
1014 grams/cm3, which occurs in compact stars. He is known for his study of topological
object, instantons, in QCD, his work on color superconductivity in quark matter, and his
work on effective theories of dense matter.
Schaefer received a Fedor Lynen Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt
Foundation in 1992, an Outstanding Junior Investigator Award from the Department of
Energy in 2002, and was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2006. He
serves as an Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters.
Jan F. Schetzina*
Page 121 Professor Schetzina was a talented physics educator and researcher of
international prominence. Dr. Schetzina graduated cum laude with a BA in Physics from
Gannon University (1963) and went on to earn an MS (1965) and PhD (1969) at
Pennsylvania State University. He relocated to North Carolina in 1970, when Dr.
Schetzina joined the faculty in the Department of Physics at North Carolina State
University (NCSU) in Raleigh, NC
A gifted teacher, Dr. Schetzina mentored numerous graduate students in a career
spanning nearly four decades. He published over 230 peer-reviewed publications and
delivered 140 invited talks throughout the world. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush
selected his physics laboratory as the site for a visit emphasizing the importance of
advanced research and technology.
Dr. Schetzina was awarded seven U.S. patents and secured nearly $20 million in
research funding for NCSU. Among his many inventions, he developed a prototype of the
world's first digital camera that senses only ultraviolet light. The first demonstration of a
U.S.-built blue laser was carried out in his optoelectronics laboratory. A Fellow of the
American Physical Society, Dr. Schetzina also received the NCSU Outstanding Teacher
Award and Alumni Research Award.
.
Lewis Worth Seagondollar
Professor Seagondollar was born in Hoisington, Kansas on September 30, 1920.
He and his parents moved to Emporia, Kansas when he was three. He went to Emporia
grade schools except for one year in Mulberry, Kansas at 5th and 6th grades. They
returned to Emporia in 1930 where he then attended Junior High School and Senior High
School graduating in 1937.
In 1932, he joined the Boy Scouts and eventually became an Eagle Scout and an
Assistant Scout Master.
In the fall of 1937, he enrolled at Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia. He
worked for the National Youth Administration all through college, first on a college
construction crew, then as an assistant to the local Boy Scout Executive, then his junior
and senior years as an undergraduate teaching assistant in the Department of Physics. The
Professor of Physics there was a new PhD one-man department and who showed him and
a group of similar persons how they could go on to graduate degrees in large US
universities and inspired them to do so and thus started their professional lives—
something he repeated in subsequent years to over a hundred persons!
In 1941, he went to the University of Wisconsin with a graduate teaching
assistantship in the Department of Physics. He planned to go to the PhD degree, but the
war caused him to get a PhM and then go the secret Manhattan District laboratory at Los
Alamos, New Mexico. He worked as experimental “Jr. Scientist” with a group that used
two van de Graaff Generators to measure cross sections of many nuclear reactions that
had to be evaluated to calculate the “critical masses” of Uranium 235 and Plutonium 239.
He was the junior man of a 3-man team who did experiments that verified the critical
mass of Plutonium 239. Their last measurement was on 98% of the material that was, a
few weeks later, detonated as the first atomic device in southern New Mexico.
On 5 September 1942, Winifred Varner and he were married. In 1945, their first
son (Bryan) was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Page 122 In 1946, he returned as a Research Assistant to the Physics Department at
Wisconsin to finish his course work and thesis for the PhD His thesis was the
experimental measurement of “The Total Cross Section of Aluminum-27 for Fast
Neutrons” under the supervision of Dr. H.H. Barschall and supported by the Wisconsin
Alumni Research Foundation.
In 1947, he became an Instructor at the University of Kansas to teach half time, to
build a 3 million volt van de Graaff generator and to do research with it. In 1950, as an
assistant Professor of Physics, he became the faculty advisor to a newly formed chapter
of Sigma Pi Sigma, the National Physics Honor Society. (This affiliation led to later
positions in the organization of National Executive Committee Member, National Vice
President, and President, presiding at the National Convention where it was voted to
merge with the Student Sections of the American Institute of Physics to form what now is
the Society of Physics Students with Sigma Pi Sigma as its honor component.
In 1949, their daughter was born (Laurel Jane, now Mrs. Gunnar Aberg in
Florida) and in 1950 their second son, Mark, was born.
In 1965, he became Head of the Department of Physics at North Carolina State
University. In 1968 he was elected Secretary of the Southeastern Section of the American
Physical Society: a position to which he was reelected annually until 1990. In 1969 he
was appointed Regional Secretary of the American Physical Society for the Southeast—a
position he held until 1990.
For several years in the 50’s, he was Secretary of the Kansas Chapter of the
Society of Sigma Xi, the National Scientific Research Society. In 1970, he received the
Outstanding Teacher Award at North Carolina State University. In 1971, he received the
Distinguished Alumni Award from Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia. In 198182 he was President of the NCSU chapter of Sigma Xi. In 1990, he received the annual
award from the Society of Physics Students of Outstanding Faculty Advisor. In 1999,
Sigma Pi Sigma established The Worth Seagondollar Award for outstanding service to
the organization.
He retired as Physics Department head in 1975 and as Professor of Physics in
1991. In the 80’s he became the Radiation Protection Officer at the Triangle Universities
laboratory—a position he left to become Consultant to the Duke University Radiation
Protection Office. He retired totally in 1997.
In 1999, Freddy and he moved to the Springmoor Life Care Retirement
Community where they had a busy and pleasant life.
Bruce Arne Sherwood
Professor Sherwood graduated in 1960 from Purdue in Engineering Science, spent
a year studying physics at the University of Padova, Italy, on a Fulbright, and received
his PhD in 1967 from the University of Chicago working in the Telegdi group on
experimental muon physics. He lectured in the “Feynman” course at Caltech 1966-1969
and was in the Users’ Group headed by Tollestrup, doing particle experiments at
Berkeley and SLAC. He was at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from
1969 to 1985, where he helped develop the PLATO computer-based education system,
especially its system software, and created a PLATO-based introductory mechanics
course. He worked on multilingual text-to-speech research and taught a linguistics
course, and was an adjunct professor of linguistics as well as professor of physics. From
1985 to 2002 at Carnegie Mellon he was a professor of physics and senior scientist in the
Page 123 Center for Innovation in Learning. He joined the NCSU physics department in 2002 as
research professor and distinguished educator in residence.
He and Professor Ruth Chabay are co-authors of the ground-breaking introductory
calculus-based physics textbook Matter & Interactions, which incorporates 20th-century
physics throughout and emphasizes the reductionist nature of physics. He is known for
innovative uses of computers in physics education, including creation of the cT
programming language and participation in the development of the 3D programming
environment Vpython, an open-source project for which he is the gatekeeper. His seminal
writings on work and energy in classical mechanics are frequently cited.
Sherwood is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the
American Association of Physics Teachers and of the Linguistic Society of America. He
and Chabay jointly received two major teaching awards at Carnegie Mellon and one at
NCSU. He is fluent in Esperanto, Italian, and Spanish and has given technical
presentations in all of these languages.
Rufus H. Snyder*
Professor Rufus H. Snyder (PhD, Ohio State University, atomic physics) joined
the NC State Department of Physics in 1948. Prior to that, he had been professor of
physics at Mercer University (1945-1948), after being associate physicist at the Applied
Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University during World War II (1943). At other
times, he had been on the physics faculty of the University of Georgia, The University of
Richmond, Mercer University and Mississippi State College.
Raymond F. Stainback*
Professor Raymond F. Stainback (MS in electrical engineering, University of
North Carolina) joined the NC State Department of Physics in 1940. During World War
II, he served in the U.S. Navy, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He returned
to NC State in 1946. He held a patent (assigned to the U.S. Navy) for the Tension
Dynamometer for measuring tension in the tow lines.
Phillip J. Stiles*
Professor Stiles received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1961. In
1962-1963, he was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Cambridge
University. He was on the research staff of IBM from 1963 to 1970, professor of physics
at Brown University from 1970 to 1993, chairman of the Brown University Department
of Physics from 1974 1980, dean of the Graduate School at Brown University from 1986
to 1993, and Ford Foundation Professor of Physics at Brown University from 1988 1993.
He came to NC State as provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs and professor of
physics in 1993, and, since 1999, has been provost and vice chancellor of academic
affairs emeritus, NC State University.
He received the Oliver F. Buckley Prize from APS in 1988, the John Price
Wetheral medal from the Franklin Institute in 1981, the IBM First Achievement Award in
1970 and the IBM Outstanding Contribution Award for Work in Tunneling Spectroscopy
in 1966, and was Humboldt Senior U.S. Scientist Award in 1970.
John E. Thomas
Professor Thomas received his Ph. D. from MIT in 1979, supported by a Hertz
Foundation pre-doctoral fellowship. He was an Assistant Professor in the department of
Page 124 Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT from 1980-1981, with a C. S. Draper Career
Development Chair, where he worked on optical methods for ultrahigh precision atomic
clocks. From 1981-1986, he was a Research Scientist in the Physics Department and
Spectroscopy Laboratory at MIT, where developed photon-echo methods for exploring
the collision physics of optical dipole radiators in gases.
He moved to the Physics Department at Duke University as an Associate
Professor in 1986, where he devised methods for quantum resonance imaging of moving
atoms, supported in part by an NIST Precision measurements grant. He was elected a
Fellow of the American Physical Society for this work. At Duke, he made the first
measurements of phase-dependent quantum noise in the radiation field of driven twolevel atoms and was the first Physics Department faculty member at Duke University to
receive a grant from the National Institute of Health, for his work on phase-space optical
coherence tomography. In 1997, Professor Thomas began the development of all-optical
cooling and trapping methods with papers on the theory laser-noise induced heating and
evaporative cooling in optical traps. He applied these methods to produce the first
degenerate, strongly interacting Fermi gas in 2002. This system is now a paradigm for
strongly interacting systems in nature, testing predictions in fields from high-temperature
superconductors to neutron matter, quark-gluon plasmas, and most recently string theory.
Dr. Thomas was promoted to a Full Professor at Duke University in 1991, and was
named the Fritz-London Distinguished Professor of Physics at Duke University in 2004.
He was nominated for an Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2005,
2007, and 2009. He has supervised the Ph. D. theses of 26 students.
In 2011, Dr. Thomas moved his laboratories from Duke University to the Physics
Department at North Carolina State University, where he runs the JETLAB quantum
optics group. His current interests include quantum hydrodynamics and perfect fluidity
in strongly interacting Fermi gases, microscopic thermodynamics and hydrodynamics in
two-dimensional Fermi gases, and optical control of dispersion and interactions in
ultracold atomic gases. For his work on strongly interacting atomic Fermi gases, Dr.
Thomas was invited to give the Dasari Lecture at MIT in 2010 and received the Jessie
Beams Award for Outstanding Research from the Southeastern Section of the American
Physical Society in 2011.
Llewellyn Hilleth Thomas [adapted from an earlier statement]*
Professor Thomas received his PhD in 1927 from Cambridge University after
having spent 1925-1926 at Bohr’s institute in Copenhagen. He joined the faculty of Ohio
State University in 1929. In 1946, he became a member of the senior staff at the Watson
Scientific Computing Laboratory of IBM at Columbia University, was named Honorary
Professor of Columbia in 1950, and an IBM Fellow in 1963. He joined NC State
University in 1968 as University Professor.
He developed the theory of the relativistic effects of the spinning electron on the
spin-orbit interaction in atoms, an effect which bears his name, “the Thomas precession.”
He further developed a statistical model of the atom which also is named for him, the
Thomas-Fermi model. Other research accomplishments include a description of a heavy
particle high energy accelerator (the Thomas Cyclotron), pioneering work in atomic
collision theory, and numerical methods with applications in atomic physics, plasma
physics, general relativity, and applied mathematics.
He received the D.Sc. degree from Cambridge University in 1963, and the
Davisson-Germer prize in 1982 from the American Physical Society “for his early
Page 125 pioneering contributions to the theory of the spin-orbit interaction in atoms and the
statistical model of atoms.” He was Fellow of the American Physical Society, a member
of the National Academy of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, Sigma Xi, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal
Astronomical Society, and the Cambridge Philosophical Society.
David Ronald Tilley
Professor Tilley received his PhD in 1958 from the Johns Hopkins University. He
became a Research Associate in Nuclear Physics at Duke University, later serving also as
Assistant Professor. He joined NC State University in 1966 as Associate Professor of
Physics and member of the research faculty of Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory.
He studied properties of the energy levels of light nuclei using nuclear reactions
and high-resolution gamma ray spectroscopy experiments. His more recent research
involved radiative-capture experiments with polarized and unpolarized beams of protons
and deuterons at astrophysical energies. These were designed to study some of the fewnucleon reactions that are important in the sun and stars. His work, and that of his
colleagues, on light nuclei led to a program of extensive evaluations and compilations of
available experimental data relevant to the energy levels of light nuclei in the mass range
A = 3-20. He and his colleagues were able to provide this information to researchers in
significantly new and effective ways by exploiting the emerging capabilities of the
internet. His academic activities included teaching of a number of undergraduate courses
including the honors sections of introductory physics over a number of years. He served
as coordinator of undergraduate advising in the physics department for several years.
He is a member of the American Physical Society, the American Association of
Physics Teachers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Sigma Xi,
Phi Eta Sigma, and Phi Beta Kappa.
Arthur W. Waltner*
Professor Arthur W. Waltner (PhD, University of North Carolina, nuclear
physics) joined the NC State Department of Physics in 1948. He was a productive
scholar, with numerous publications, and was supervisor of much graduate student
research. In particular, he used effectively a low energy Van de Graaff accelerator located
in the department.
Hong Wang
Hong Wang obtained her Ph. D. in physics from the University of North
Carolina in 2003 specializing in materials and biophysics. She then took a postdoctoral
training from 2004-2008 in DNA repair and single-molecule imaging, at the U. S.
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Following this, she then served
from 2008-2011 in a postdoctoral training in telomere biology and single-molecule
imaging at the University of Pittsburgh. She joined the department of Physics in the fall
of 2011 bring with her a highly competitive NIH grant.
Her research focuses on single-molecule experimental investigations of the
structure-function relationships that govern the maintenance of telomeres. Telomeres
are nucleoprotein structures that cap the ends of linear chromosomes. Dysfunctional
telomeres are important contributing factors in aging and tumorigenesis. Telomeric
DNA sequences show a higher susceptibility to certain DNA damaging agents than
Page 126 random DNA sequences. The goal of her current research is to use two highly
innovative and complementary single-molecule imaging techniques (atomic force
microscopy and fluorescence imaging) together with quantum dot labeled proteins to
investigate the effects of DNA damage on the conformational and dynamic properties
of telomeric DNA structure and telomere binding proteins. She work concentrates on
dynamic protein-DNA interactions in real time and at the single-molecule level using
techniques developed by her group to perform a unique DNA tight-rope assay. This
assay has enabled visualization of DNA in its extended form several micrometers above
the surface and to observe movements of individual proteins with up to 17 nm
positional accuracy and 50 ms temporal resolution using oblique-angle fluorescence
microscopy.
Keith Weninger*
Professor Weninger received his PhD in 1997 from the University of California at
Los Angeles (UCLA). After postdoctoral appointments at UCLA (1997-2000) and
Stanford University (2000-2004), he joined the faculty of North Carolina State University
in 2004 as an assistant professor.
He characterized many of the extreme conditions leading to sonoluminescence,
the conversion of sound into light by the non-linear oscillations of a bubble within a
liquid. With light scattering he resolved the Mach 4 implosion of the bubble leading to
flashes of light. The structure of those 30 ps long light flashes was resolved spectrally and
temporally. Upon switching into biophysics research, he developed the use of single
molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer to characterize the conformational
dynamics of multimeric protein complexes. Other research accomplishments include the
use of single particle tracking to determine the infection pathway of alphaviruses and the
discovery of icoseconds charging effects from the friction of mercury rolling on glass.
He received the Career Award at the Scientific Interface for his work in
biophysics from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
Walter Dexter Whitehead*
Professor Whitehead received his PhD from the University of Virginia in1949,
and was on the NC State physics faculty from1953 to 1956. He returned to the University
of Virginia faculty where he served as chairman of the Department of Physics and
subsequently dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. His research work was in
nuclear physics.
Dudley Williams*
Professor Williams received his PhD from the University of North Carolina in
1936 and served as head of the NC State Department of Physics in 1963 and 1964, after
which he became Regents Distinguished Professor of Physics at Kansas State University.
Earlier in his career, he was on the physics faculty at Ohio State University, where he
served as chairman on two occasions. He participated in the Manhattan Project at Los
Alamos. His research area was in spectroscopy.
James W. York, Jr.*
Professor York received his PhD from NC State University in 1966. After serving
in faculty positions at Princeton University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Page 127 Hill (where he held the Bahnson Professorship) and Cornell University, he returned to his
alma mater as a research professor in 2008.
Albert Raymond Young*
Professor Young received his PhD in 1990 from Harvard University in
experimental atomic physics. He spent 1990 to 1992 at the California Institute of
Technology as a research associate in Felix Boehm’s group, and then moved to Princeton
where he stayed for the next eight years, first as a research associate, then as a lecturer,
and finally as an assistant professor from 1996 to 2000. He joined NC State University in
2000 as assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 2001 and
professor in 2005.
He developed several different methods for optically orienting nuclei and
participated in a variety of atomic, nuclear and particle physics experiments, typically to
test some aspect of the standard electroweak theory of particle physics. He helped
develop a prototype solid deuterium source of ultracold neutrons at Los Alamos that
became the basis for a similar project at the PULSTAR reactor on the NC State
University campus. He is a member of the American Physical Society.
3. Faculty Achievements and Accolades
This section lists, under several headings, diverse accomplishments and awards received
by members of the NC State University physics faculty.
A.
Academy of Outstanding Teachers
NC State annually selects faculty members for recognition as outstanding teachers. This
table lists the members of the Department of Physics who have been identified as
outstanding teachers.
Name
Beichner, Robert J.
Blondin, John M.
Cobb, Grover C.
Doggett, Wesley O.
Fornes, Raymond E.
Gould, Christopher R.
Haase, David G.
Johnston, Karen L.
Lado, Fred
Memory, Jasper D.
Patty, Richard R.
Patty, Richard R.
Patty, Richard R.
Reynolds, Stephen P.
Year
1997-1998
1999-2000
1992-1993
1988-1989
1973-1974
1984-1986
1981-1982
1987-1988
1991-1992
1966-1967
1968-1969
1973-1974
1982-1983
1990-1991
Page 128 Rieg, Elizabeth A.
Paesler, Michael A.
Santos-Filho OP.
Seagondollar, Lewis W.
Schetzina, Jan F.
B.
1996-1997
2001-2002
1998-1999
1969-1970
1976-1977
Alexander von Humboldt Award
Karen Daniels
Mitchell, Gary
Schafer, Thomas M.
Stiles, Phillip
C.
2011
1975, 1997
1992
1970
American Physical Society Fellows
The American Physical Society (APS) periodically identifies from its membership
individuals who have distinguished themselves in their field, and designated them as APS
Fellows. This table lists those faculty members from the NC State University Department
of Physics, past and present.
Ade, Harald
Aspnes, David E.
Beichner, Robert J.
Bernholc, Jerzy
Blondin, John
Brown, David
Buorngiorno-Nardelli, Marco
Chabay, Ruth
Cotanch, Stephen
Chung, Kwong T.
Ellison, Donald C.
Gould, Christopher R.
Haase, David G.
Ji, Chueng-R.
Krim, Jacqueline
Lucovsky, Gerald
McLaughlin, Gail
Memory, Jasper D.
Menius, Arthur C.
Mitas, Lubas
Mitchell, Gary E.
Murray, Raymond L.
Nemanich, Robert J.
Paesler, Michael A.
Reynolds, Stephen P.
Risley, John S.
Page 129 Sayers, Dale E.
Schaefer, Thomas M.
Schetzina, Jan F.
Sherwood, Bruce A.
Stiles, Phillip J.
Waltner, Arthur
Young, Albert
D.
Book Authors
Several faculty members have authored books, some dealing with research topics and
some textbooks. Below is a partial listing of those.
Beichner, Robert J.
Physics for Scientists and Engineers (with Serway), Fort Worth, TX: Saunders College
Publishing [2000].
Essentials of Educational Technology (with Schwartz), Boston: Allyn and Bacon [1999].
Essentials of Classroom Teaching (with Dabey), Boston: Allyn and Bacon [1994].
Chabay, Ruth W.
Matter and Interactions, vol. 1 and 2 (with Sherwood), John Wiley and Sons, Inc. [2002].
Cobb, Grover C.
Physics: Concepts and Consequences (with Murray), Prentice-Hall [1970].
Davis, William R.
Cornelius Lanczos: Collected Published Papers with Commentaries Raleigh, NC:
College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, NC State University [1998].
Ji, Chueng R.
Pedestrian Approach to Particle Physics South Korea: Asia Pacific Center for
Theoretical Physics [2007].
Memory, Jasper D.
High Resolution NMR in the Solid State: Fundamentals of CP/MAS, (with Stejskal),
Oxford University Press [1994].
NMR of Aromatic Compounds (with Wilson), Wiley Interscience [1982].
Quantum Theory of Magnetic Resonance Parameters, McGraw-Hill [1968].
Murray, Raymond L.
Physics: Concepts and Consequences (with Cobb), Prentice-Hall [1970].
Nuclear Energy: An Introduction to the Concepts, Systems, and Applications of Nuclear
Processes, Boston: Butterworth/Heinemann [2001].
Paesler, Michael A.
Near-field Optics: Theory, Instrumentation and Applications, (with Moyer), Bellingham,
Washington: John Wiley [1995].
Page 130 Sherwood, Bruce A.
Matter and Interactions, vol. 1 and 2 (with Chabay), John Wiley and Sons, Inc. [2002].
Williams, Dudley A.
Physics: Fundamental Principles for Students of Science and Engineering (with
Shortley), New York: Prentice Hall [1950].
E.
Department Firsts
Tabulated below are several “firsts” for the Physics Department.
•
WebAssign (AIS): First major startup company: John Risley.
•
ChiPS (Center for High Performance Simulations): First UNC System-recognized
research center: Jerzy Bernholc.
•
First NC State International Research Exposition Award received in 1998.
•
First faculty member with physics instruction as an explicit duty was Lieutenant
Richard Henderson, who joined the faculty in 1894, with the title professor of
physics and military science.
.
F. Distinguished Alumni Professorship Awards: Teaching (Undergraduate,
Graduate) and Research
The NC State Alumni Association presents a few special awards, which carry with them
a financial stipend. These awards recognize particularly distinguished service in
undergraduate teaching, graduate teaching, and research.
Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor: Robert J. Beichner (2002), John
Blondin, (2010), Christoper R. Gould (1990), David G. Haase (1989), Richard R. Patty
(1991), Stephen P. Reynolds (2000).
Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor: David E. Aspnes (2005), Gerald Lucovsky
(2010), Gary E. Mitchell (1994), Robert J. Nemanich (2001)Alumni Outstanding
Research Awards: David E. Aspnes (1997), Jerzy Bernholc (1992), Jacqueline Krim
(2002), Gerald Lucovsky (1986), Dale E. Sayers (1995), Jan F. Schetzina (1990)
UNC Board of Governor's Award for Excellence in Teaching: Robert Beichner (2010),
Stephen P. Reynolds (2012)
G.
Extracurricular Activities
Page 131 One remarkable aspect of the department is the range of outstanding accomplishments
outside the academic world. A few of these appear below. These accomplishments are
varied, but two areas stand out: athletics and music.
Robert A. Egler hiked solo to the North Pole.
Raymond E. Fornes won 75 handball tournaments including the Championship of the
Southeast and was Champion of the state of North Carolina 11 times.
J. Richard Mowat ran 13 marathons with a lifetime average of 2:55, and was listed in
USA Today as being the top finisher from the state of North Carolina in the 1991 New
York City Marathon.
Michael A. Paesler swam the English Channel in 1970 and ran the Boston Marathon in
1978, becoming the first person to do both.
Stephen Reynolds has worked as a professional violinist in major orchestras and
continues to receive royalties for his work in the movie One Flew over the Cuckoo’s
Nest.
.
In a small basement room in Holiday Hall on October 12, 2011, Chris Gould sat at a
keyboard and broke a 20 year long silence by playing the university carillon. The
carillon’s bells are being refurbished with gifts from graduating students, and this
performance heralded the first installation of new bells.
Michael Paesler swam the Straits of the Bosphorous in Turkey in 2010. Braving 53°F
water and strong currents, he was led through the busy channel by the Istanbul Harbor
Master who negotiated a break in the tanker traffic to allow for the swim. Much earlier
he swam the English Channel and had run the Boston Marathon.
John Risley hiked the Trail of the Lorelei in Germany. This arduous fortnight long
journey – along a path taken by tourists in excursion crafts on the Rhine river – involves
hiking trails along the steep terrain following a string of medieval castles.
Marco Buongiorno-Nardelli played flute in ELM Collective, a jazz band comprised of
seven musicians and composers from five nations and four continents. In addition to
cutting its own CDs the group performed at festivals and clubs.
The music of composer (and departmental lecturer) Bill Robinson has performed in a
series of concerts at Duke University. Beginning with violin sonatas, the scale of the
performances has expanded to include chamber ensembles playing orchestral pieces.
With sons Sam and Jack playing with him in the adult league, John Blondin shared with
them the joys of victory as their ice hockey team, Window World, when they won their
league championship.
The raucous championship game audience included the
department’s Students Physics Society.
Page 132 Along with his long-time piano accompanist from Charlottesville, Stephen Reynolds
performed a number of recitals. Two notable local events held at the Gregg Museum on
NC State campus included several Sonatas for violin and piano.
H.
Jesse W. Beams Award
Bernholc Jerzy
Gerald Lucovsky
Mitchell, Gary
John Thomas
I.
2003
2009
1997
2011
Journal Editors
Several faculty members have edited professional journals in their field of expertise, as
evidenced by the following list.
Beichner, Robert J., Physical Review Special Topics, Physics Education Research
Lucovskey, Gerald, Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology
Nemanich, Robert J., Diamond and Related Materials.
J.
Named Professorships
Several faculty members have edited professional journals in their field of expertise, as
evidenced by the following list.
David E. Aspnes, Distinguished University Professor of Physics
Willard H. Bennett, Burlington Professor of Physics
Jerzy Bernholc, Drexel Professor of Physics
Gerald Lucovsky, University Professor of Physics
Thomas Schaefer, Distinguished Professor of Physics
K.
National Academy of Sciences Members
The National Academy of Sciences is generally regarded as the most prestigious
American organization of scientists. The NC State Department of Physics has had two
members of the Academy.
Aspnes, David E.
Thomas, Llewellyn H.
L.
National Science Foundation CAREER
Page 133 National Science Foundation CAREER Awards are given to scientists early in their
careers as evidence that NSF considers them to be of exceptional promise.
Ade, Harald W.
Blondin, John
Daniels, Karen E.
Daugherty, Daniel B.
Lazzati, Davide
McLaughlin, Gail C.
Roland, Christopher M.
Sagui, Maria C.
1994
1997
2007
2011
2012
2005*
1996
2005
* declined the NSF award to accept a DOE Junior Career award
M.
NC State Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence
The NC State Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence is the highest honor the
university’s Board of Trustees gives to a faculty member and is evidence of exceptional
service to the institution. The Department of Physics has had these faculty members so
honored.
Fornes, Raymond E.
Haase, David J.
Patty, Richard R.
N.
2008
1998
1995
Other Professional Recognitions
NSF American Competiveness and Innovation Fellowship: Jackie Krim (2010)
McGraw Prize in Education - Robert Beichner (2011)
Carnegie Foundation NC Professor of the Year - Robert J. Beichner (2010)
Arthur H. Compton Award: Dale Sayers (postumously, 2011)
O.
Pegram Medals (APS)
The Pegram Award is granted by the Southeastern Section of the American Physical
Society to honor “excellence in the teaching of physics in the Southeast.”
Beichner, Robert
Haase, David J.
Patty, Richard
P.
2006
1998
1990
Professional Association Officers
Page 134 A number of faculty members in the NC State Department of Physics have served as
officers in professional associations. Several are listed here.
Chueng-R Ji President of of the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers (2010) and
President of the Association of Korean Physicists in America (2010)
Raymond E. Fornes, The Fibre Society, President (1991)
John L. Hubisz, American Association of Physics Teachers, President (2001)
Karen L. Johnston, American Association of Physics Teachers, President (1995)
Jasper D. Memory, Graduate Record Examination Board, Chair (1989)
Robert J. Nemanich, International Union of Materials Research Societies, President
(2003-2004)
Robert J. Nemanich, Materials Research Society, President (1997)
John L. Hubisz, American Association of Physics Teachers, President (2001)
Lewis W. Seagondollar, SESAPS, Secretary-Treasurer (1968-1990)
P.
University Administrative Positions
An unusual number of Physics Department members have served in academic
administrative positions outside the department. Several are listed here.
NC State University:
Dean of the College: Arthur C. Menius
Associate Dean of the College: Wesley Doggett, Raymond E. Fornes, Christopher R.
Gould, Jackie Krim, Jasper D. Memory
Dean of the Graduate School and Vice Provost: Jasper D. Memory,
Associate Dean of the Graduate School: Raymond E. Fornes
Provost: Harry C. Kelly, Phillip J. Stiles
Director: of the STEM Education Initiative: Robert J. Beichner
UNC System:
Vice President for Research: Jasper D. Memory.
V.
Students
The first baccalaureate degree in physics was awarded in the 1925, when the department
was part of the School of Science and Business. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, NC
Page 135 State built the first academic nuclear reactor, and the first large research program in
physics was centered about this. The first PhDs were awarded in 1956. In 1960, the
department became part of the newly formed School of Physical Sciences and Applied
Mathematics (now the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences). Through
calendar year 2012, it has awarded 1541 total degrees including 367 doctorates.
1.
Number of Undergraduate and Graduate Degrees Awarded by Decade
Total Physics Degrees Awarded by NC State University
Year
Degrees Awarded
1920-29
1930-39
1940-49
1950-59
1960-69
1970-79
1980-89
1990-99
2000-9
2010-12
8
13
0
43
206
212
222
291
392
154*
*Through 2012
TABLE 6.-Number of Students
2.
Recipients of the PhD
A.
Ph. D Graduates Listed Chronologically
Name
Bjorkman, John A.*
Lundholm, Joseph G. Jr.*
Fulmer, Clyde B.*
Hasnain, Syed A.
Lamonds, Harold A.
Lellouche, Gerald S.
McCutchan, David A.
Mowery, Alfred L. Jr.
Chaplin, Robert L. Jr.
Dickson, Paul W. Jr.
Dough, Robert L.
Page 136 Graduation Year
1956
1956
1957
1959
1959
1960
1960
1961
1962
1962
1962
Ganguly, Nripendra K.
Moss, Marvin K.
Westfall, Frederick R.
Katzin, Gerald H.
Martin, Chreston F.
McRary, John W. III
Bryan, Frederick A. Jr.
Daughtry, James W.
Miller, Thomas G.
Poncelet, Claude G.
Welt, Martin A.
Mink, Lawrence A.
York, James W. Jr.
Gardner, Jack A.
Massel, Gary A.
Philbrick, Charles R.
Roberts, Thomas G.
Cobb, Thomas B.
Oberhofer, Edward S.
Ocasio-Cabanas, Willie
Seykora, Edward J.
Wakefield, Robert H. Jr.
Cox, James L. Jr.
Mainster, Martin A.
Fornes, Raymond E.
Gravely, Benjamin P.
McCorkle, Richard A.
Prak, Jan W. L.
Proni, John R.
Bravo, Jorge A.
Cheng, Eiton Tin-ming
Grauer, Albert D.
Hassan, Moises A.
Mathur, Jagdish P.
McClenny, William A.
Miller, Daniel W.
Smith, Bennett M.
Adams, James H. Jr.
Gibson, Richard A.
McMahon, Daniel J.
Nicaise, Walter F.
Peterson, David M.
Page 137 1962
1962
1962
1963
1963
1964
1965
1965
1965
1965
1965
1966
1966
1967
1967
1967
1967
1968
1968
1968
1968
1968
1969
1969
1970
1970
1970
1970
1970
1971
1971
1971
1971
1971
1971
1971
1971
1972
1972
1972
1972
1973
Harward, Charles N.
Long, Edward R. Jr.
May, John T.
Outlaw, Douglas A.
Williams, John R. Jr.
Wimpey, James F.
Khalid, Qutubuddin
Mani, K. V.
Baity, Frederick W. Jr.
Christian Wolfgang
Dittrich, Thomas R.
Fong, Siu Wing
Lee, William H.
Scannell, Edward P.
Adrion, Robert F.
Fleming, William W.
Pasour, John A.
Chandler, John R.
Stringfield, Ray M.
Oliver, Davis R. Jr.
Atkins, William K.
Baker, William M.
Chou Biing-Hui
Grube, Geraldine J.
Norris, Larry K.
Pershing, Dean E.
Sales, Kenneth B.
Tsai, John S
Beyerle, Albert G. Jr.
Jensen, Mark J.
Morrow, David L.
Russwurm, George M.
Ward, Linton B. Jr.
Bennett, Charles A. Jr.
Davis, Brian F.
Edwards, Stephey W.
Green, Larry H.
Montgomery, David B.
Tipton, Charles A.
Grishin, Anatole P.
Havener, Charles C.
Lawing, David A.
1974
1974
1974
1974
1974
1974
1975
1975
1976
1976
1976
1976
1976
1976
1977
1977
1977
1978
1978
1979
1980
1980
1980
1980
1980
1980
1980
1980
1981
1981
1981
1981
1981
1982
1982
1982
1982
1982
1982
1983
1983
1983
Page 138 Mansour, Azzam N.
Myers, Thomas H. II
Rice, Theodore R.
Smith, John R.
Ives, Robert L.
Jackson, Robert H. Jr.
Lee, Jhang W.
McPherson, Leroy A. Jr.
Musameh, Sharif M. S.
Ramakrishnan, Prabha K.
Saleh, Abdelkarim M.
Tadros, Alfred S.
Vanajakshi C. T.
Huddle, James R.
Long, Shelia Ann T.
Rudder, Ronald A.
Smith, Richard S III
Bicknell Robert N.
Hsiao, Shian-Shyong
Lin, Shu-Ya
Ward, David A.
Wong, Chi K.
Giles, Nancy C.
Harris, Karl A.
Mosley, Larry E.
Yang, Chen-Yui
Hwang, Shyang
Park, Jhi Sook Lee
Anthony, John M.
Hammon, Kevin S.
Harper, Randall L. Jr.
James, Lawrence H.
Treado, Todd A.
Tsu, David V.
Ashburn, John R.
Calamai, Anthony G.
Eljabaly, Kamal A.
Han, Jeong Whan
Kim, Sang Soo
Park, Kyoung W.
Parsons, Gregory N.
Schardt, Randall J.
Page 139 1983
1983
1983
1983
1984
1984
1984
1984
1984
1984
1984
1984
1984
1985
1985
1985
1985
1986
1986
1986
1986
1986
1987
1987
1987
1987
1988
1988
1989
1989
1989
1989
1989
1989
1990
1990
1990
1990
1990
1990
1990
1990
Cline, Robert A
Frankle, Christen M.
Frankle, Stephanie C.
Koster, James E.
Pfeiffer, Gerd
Sparks, Ronald G.
Wang, Cheng
Wang, Chinhsiang
Yi, Jae-Yel
Zhou, Weiqing
Bjorkman, Claes H.
Cho, Jaewon
Davidson, Brian N.
Jackson, Caesar R.
Joo, Minsoo
Ligtenberg, Robert CG
Ren, Jie, J.
Stone, Craid D.
Turner, Kevin F.
Waytena, Gail L.
Chilton Jimmie H.
Hurley, Jeffrey D.
Jung, Donggeun
Ma, Yi
Moyer, Patrick J.
Vanderweide, Jacob
Williams, Robert A. Jr.
Zhang, Shan M.
Bright, Thomas B.
Drake, Joann M.
Eason, David B.
Gossett, Kimberly J.
Habermehl, Scott D.
He Shunsheng
Kajihara, Scott A.
Keith, Christopher D.
Schneider, Thomas P.
Wang, Qingsheng
Williams, Meredith J.
Aldrich, David B.
Briggs, Emil L.
Bybee, Charles R.
1991
1991
1991
1991
1991
1991
1991
1991
1991
1991
1992
1992
1992
1992
1992
1992
1992
1992
1992
1992
1993
1993
1993
1993
1993
1993
1993
1993
1994
1994
1994
1994
1994
1994
1994
1994
1994
1994
1994
1995
1995
1995
Page 140 Chen, Bin
Cho Seon Mee
Dao, Yuan
Pang, Chiu-Yan
Tucker, Eric C.
Adams, Amizie A.
Bennett, Carson L. II
Brabec, Charles J.
Jahncke, Catherine L.
Ku, Ja-Hum
Larosa, Andres H.
Lowie, Lisa Y.
Montgomery, Jeffrey S.
Stephens, Douglas J.
Stephenson, Sharon L.
Vavrina, Gereard A.
Wensell, Mark G.
Baumann, Peter K.
Englehardt, Paula V.
Raichle, Brian W.
Shmagin Irina K.
Yu, Segi
Benjamin, Mark C.
Mantese, Lucymarie
Muth, John F.
Scarfone, Christopher
Titus, Aaron P.
Walston, Joseph R.
Amro, Hanan M.
Boney, John C.
Browne, Michael C.
Choi, Ho Meoyng
Christman, James A.
Grossmann, Chris A.
Obrien, Michael L.
Sowers, Andrew T.
Wright, Eric B.
Yoo, Sang-Duk
Ayars, Eric J.
Bell, Kimberly A.
Brown, Jeffrey D.
Dancy, Melissa H.
1995
1995
1995
1995
1995
1996
1996
1996
1996
1996
1996
1996
1996
1996
1996
1996
1996
1997
1997
1997
1997
1997
1998
1998
1998
1998
1998
1998
1999
1999
1999
1999
1999
1999
1999
1999
1999
1999
2000
2000
2000
2000
Page 141 Llanes-Estrada, Felipe
Orlikowski, Daniel A.
Powell, Gary D.
Ward, Brandon L.
Abdelmaksoud, Mohamed K .
Allain, Rhett J.
Deardorff, Duane L.
Dyer, Kristy K.
Heurth, Suzanne H
Li, Eugene S.
Oh, Jaehwan
Yang, Woochul
Agvaanluvsan, Undraa
Johnson, Robert S.
Kiss, Miklos Z.
Rayner, Gilbert B.
Tavukcu, Emel
Wang, Jih-Fu T.
Ware, Morgan E.
Winsett, Donald A.
Abbott, David S.
Clantoni, Joseph
Double, Glen P.
Flock, Klaus
Hendrick, Sean P.
Messimore, Jason A.
Owen, Michael P.
Rodrigueaz, Brian J.
Winder, Steven M.
Zhaq, Qingzong
Beal, William C.
Burnette, James E. Jr.
Coffey, Tonya S.
Foster, Ryan D.
Herce, Henry D.
Lokitz, Stephen J.
McDevitt, Daniel B.
Mischenko, Juriy
Newton, Gregory A.
Pierson, David M.
Shalaby, Abouzeid M.
Thaxton, Christopher S.
Page 142 2000
2000
2000
2000
2001
2001
2001
2001
2001
2001
2001
2001
2002
2002
2002
2002
2002
2002
2002
2002
2003
2003
2003
2003
2003
2003
2003
2003
2003
2003
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
Wang, YunYu
Asar, Muharrem
Dashdorj, Dugersuren
McLean, Morgan S.
Zhang, Yu
Asciutto, Eliana Karina
Baucom, Jason
Connor, Dean Michael
Highland, Matthew Joseph
Jaye, Cherno
Neeyakorn, Worakarn
Peng, Haijiang
Wagner, Lucas Kyle
Wang, Shuchun
Xu, Yanping
Zhang, Xiyao
Adles, Joseph
Bajdich, Michal
Baker, David
Ding, Lin
Garguilo, Jacob
General, Ignacio
Hanson, Jacqueline
Janca, Andrew
Odbadrakh, Horgolkhuu
Perkins, James
Poole, John Owen
Sheets, Steven
Smith, Joshua R.
Sundameya, Anderson
Tang, Yingjie
Taylor, Michael
Zeman, Matthew
Beun, Benjamin Josua
Brown, John Christopher
Dewitt, Martin A
Heyward, Keith
Kong, Xianhua
Krishnan, Mandayam
Liu, Xiang
Long, Joseph P.
Lowe, Lisa
Page 143 2004
2005
2005
2005
2005
2006
2006
2006
2006
2006
2006
2006
2006
2006
2006
2006
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2007
2008
2008
2008
2008
2008
2008
2008
2008
2008
Nunez, Matias
Tedesco, Joseph
Wang, Cheng
Chadwick, Christopher T.
Choi, Ucheor
Chyzh, Andrii
Clark, Beverly
Dubose, Franklin
Kephart, Jeremy D.
Miller, Brendan
Stevens, Derrick
Vladimirov, Andrey
Wessels, Laura R.
Wu, Dong
Yu, Liping
Baramsai, Bayarbadrakh
Dawson, Benjamin David
Gaffney, Johnathan David Housley
O’Shaughnessy, Christopher
Paul, Sujata
Richards, Evan Thomas
Robinson, William R.
Thompson, Richard
Washington, Joseph St. Paul
Williams, Brian Jeffrey
Chao, Jingyi
Emanuel, Ako
Hook, David A.
Karpusenka, Vadzem
Kustusch, Mary Bridget
Lynch, Iyam
Moradi, Mahmaud
Pan, Liming
Sakon, John J.
Snyder, Michelle
Srinivas, Sundar
Stoute, Nicholas A.
Weatherford, Shawn A.
Berman, Diana
Holley, Adam T.
Huston, Maurice Shawn
Li, Xin
Page 144 2008
2008
2008
2009
2009
2009
2009
2009
2009
2009
2009
2009
2009
2009
2009
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2010
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2011
2012
2012
2012
2012
Mullen, Jeffrey
Wang, Zhengang
Fallest, David
Gorce, Bilil
Kendellen, David
Lunk, Brandon
Mumpower, Mathew
Owens, Eli
Pattie, Robert
Pronchinske, Alex
Puckett, James
Qiu, Ruiyi
Rasch, Kevin
Roman, Michael
Sandin Andreas
Swank, Christopher
Tokunaga, Yukihisa
Xu, Shu
Yan, Hongping
Zhou, Chungda
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
2012
Page 145 TABLE 7. Ph. D. Graduates Listed Chronologically
*These degrees were in Engineering Physics
B.
Ph. D Graduates listed Alphabetically
Name
Abbott, David S.
Abdelmaksoud, Mohamed K .
Adams, Amizie A.
Adams, James H. Jr.
Adles, Joseph
Adrion, Robert F.
Agvaanluvsan, Undraa
Aldrich, David B.
Allain, Rhett J.
Amro, Hanan M.
Anthony, John M.
Asar, Muharrem
Asciutto, Eliana Karina
Ashburn, John R.
Atkins, William K.
Ayars, Eric J.
Baity, Frederick W. Jr.
Bajdich, Michal
Baker, David
Baker, William M.
Baramsai, Bayarbadrakh
Baucom, Jason
Baumann, Peter K.
Beal, William C.
Bell, Kimberly A.
Benjamin, Mark C.
Bennett, Carson L. II
Bennett, Charles A. Jr.
Berman, Diana
Beun, Josua
Beyerle, Albert G. Jr.
Bicknell Robert N.
Page 146 Graduation Year
2003
2001
1996
1972
2007
1977
2002
1995
2001
1999
1989
2005
2006
1990
1980
2000
1976
2007
2007
1980
2010
2006
1997
2004
2000
1998
1996
1982
2012
2008
1981
1986
Bjorkman, Claes H.
Bjorkman, John A.*
Boney, John C.
Brabec, Charles J.
Bravo, Jorge A.
Briggs, Emil L.
Bright, Thomas B.
Brown, Christopher
Brown, Jeffrey D.
Browne, Michael C.
Bryan, Frederick A. Jr.
Burnette, James E. Jr.
Bybee, Charles R.
Calamai, Anthony G.
Chadwick, Christopher T.
Chandler, John R.
Chao, Jingyi
Chaplin, Robert L. Jr.
Chen, Bin
Cheng, Eiton Tin-ming
Chilton Jimmie H.
Cho Seon Mee
Cho, Jaewon
Choi, Ho Meoyng
Choi, Ucheor
Chou Biing-Hui
Christian Wolfgang
Christman, James A.
Chyzh, Andrii
Clantoni, Joseph
Clark, Beverly
Cline, Robert A
Cobb, Thomas B.
Coffey, Tonya S.
Connor, Dean Michael
Cox, James L. Jr.
Dancy, Melissa H.
Dao, Yuan
Dashdorj, Dugersuren
Daughtry, James W.
Davidson, Brian N.
Davis, Brian F.
Page 147 1992
1956
1999
1996
1971
1995
1994
2008
2000
1999
1965
2004
1995
1990
2009
1978
2011
1962
1995
1971
1993
1995
1992
1999
2009
1980
1976
1999
2009
2003
2009
1991
1968
2004
2006
1969
2000
1995
2005
1965
1992
1982
Dawson, Benjamin David
Deardorff, Duane L.
Dewitt, Martin A
Dickson, Paul W. Jr.
Ding, Lin
Dittrich, Thomas R.
Double, Glen P.
Dough, Robert L.
Drake, Joann M.
Dubose, Franklin
Dyer, Kristy K.
Eason, David B.
Edwards, Stephey W.
Eljabaly, Kamal A.
Emanuel, Ako
Englehardt, Paula V.
Fallest, David
Fleming, William W.
Flock, Klaus
Fong, Siu Wing
Fornes, Raymond E.
Foster, Ryan D.
Frankle, Christen M.
Frankle, Stephanie C.
Fulmer, Clyde B.*
Gaffney, Johnathan David Housley
Ganguly, Nripendra K.
Gardner, Jack A.
Garguilo, Jacob
General, Ignacio
Gibson, Richard A.
Giles, Nancy C.
Gorce, Bilil
Gossett, Kimberly J.
Grauer, Albert D.
Gravely, Benjamin P.
Green, Larry H.
Grishin, Anatole P.
Grossmann, Chris A.
Grube, Geraldine J.
Habermehl, Scott D.
Hammon, Kevin S.
Page 148 2010
2001
2008
1962
2007
1976
2003
1962
1994
2009
2001
1994
1982
1990
2012
1997
2012
1977
2003
1976
1970
2004
1991
1991
1957
2010
1962
1967
2007
2007
1972
1987
2012
1994
1971
1970
1982
1983
1999
1980
1994
1989
Han, Jeong Whan
Hanson, Jacqueline
Harper, Randall L. Jr.
Harris, Karl A.
Harward, Charles N.
Hasnain, Syed A.
Hassan, Moises A.
Havener, Charles C.
He Shunsheng
Hendrick, Sean P.
Herce, Henry D.
Heurth, Suzanne H
Heywward, Keith
Highland, Matthew Joseph
Holley, Adam T.
Hook, David A,
Hsiao, Shian-Shyong
Huddle, James R.
Hurley, Jeffrey D.
Huston, Shawn
Hwang, Shyang
Ives, Robert L.
Jackson, Caesar R.
Jackson, Robert H. Jr.
Jahncke, Catherine L.
James, Lawrence H.
Janca, Andrew
Jaye, Cherno
Jensen, Mark J.
Johnson, Robert S.
Joo, Minsoo
Jung, Donggeun
Kajihara, Scott A.
Karpusenka, Vadzem
Katzin, Gerald H.
Keith, Christopher D.
Kendellen, David
Kephart, Jeremy D.
Khalid, Qutubuddin
Kim, Sang Soo
Kiss, Miklos Z.
Kong, Xianhua
Page 149 1990
2007
1989
1987
1974
1959
1971
1983
1994
2003
2004
2001
2008
2006
2012
2011
1986
1985
1993
2012
1988
1984
1992
1984
1996
1989
2007
2006
1981
2002
1992
1993
1994
2011
1963
1994
2012
2009
1975
1990
2002
2008
Koster, James E.
Krishnan, Mandayam
Ku, Ja-Hum
Kustusch, Mary Bridget
Lamonds, Harold A.
Larosa, Andres H.
Lawing, David A.
Lee, Jhang W.
Lee, William H.
Lellouche, Gerald S.
Li, Eugene S.
Li, Xin
Ligtenberg, Robert C.G.
Lin, Shu-Ya
Liu, Xiang
Llanes-Estrada, Felipe
Lokitz, Stephen J.
Long, Edward R. Jr.
Long, Joseph P.
Long, Shelia Ann T.
Lowe, Lisa
Lowie, Lisa Y.
Lundholm, Joseph G. Jr.*
Lunk, Brandon
Lynch, Iyam
Ma, Yi
Mainster, Martin A.
Mani, KV
Mansour, Azzam N.
Mantese, Lucymarie
Moradi, Mahmaud
Martin, Chreston F.
Massel, Gary A.
Mathur, Jagdish P.
May, John T.
McClenny, William A.
McCorkle, Richard A.
McCutchan, David A.
McDevitt, Daniel B.
McLean, Morgan S.
McMahon, Daniel J.
McPherson, Leroy A. Jr.
Page 150 1991
2008
1996
2011
1959
1996
1983
1984
1976
1960
2001
2012
1992
1986
2008
2000
2004
1974
2008
1985
2008
1996
1956
2012
2011
1993
1969
1975
1983
1998
2011
1963
1967
1971
1974
1971
1970
1960
2004
2005
1972
1984
McRary, John W. III
Messimore, Jason A.
Miller, Brendan
Miller, Daniel W.
Miller, Thomas G.
Mink, Lawrence A.
Mischenko, Juriy
Montgomery, David B.
Montgomery, Jeffrey S.
Moradi, Mahmaud
Morrow, David L.
Mosley, Larry E.
Moss, Marvin K.
Mowery, Alfred L. Jr.
Moyer, Patrick J.
Mumpower, Mathew
Musameh, Sharif M. S.
Muth, John F.
Myers, Thomas H. II
Mullen, Jeffrey
Neeyakorn, Worakarn
Newton, Gregory A.
Nicaise, Walter F.
Norris, Larry K.
Nunez, Matias
Oberhofer, Edward S.
Obrien, Michael L.
Ocasio-Cabanas, Willie
Odbadrakh, Horgolkhuu
Oh, Jaehwan
Oliver, Davis R. Jr.
Orlikowski, Daniel A.
O’Shaughnessy, Christopher
Outlaw, Douglas A.
Owen, Michael P.
Owens, Eli
Pan, Liming
Pang, Chiu-Yan
Park, Jhi Sook Lee
Park, Kyoung W.
Parsons, Gregory N.
Pasour, John A.
Page 151 1964
2003
2009
1971
1965
1966
2004
1982
1996
2011
1981
1987
1962
1961
1993
2012
1984
1998
1983
2012
2006
2004
1972
1980
2008
1968
1999
1968
2007
2001
1979
2000
2010
1974
2003
2012
2011
1995
1988
1990
1990
1977
Pattie, Robert
Paul, Sujata
Peng, Haijiang
Perkins, James
Pershing, Dean E.
Peterson, David M.
Pfeiffer, Gerd
Philbrick, Charles R.
Pierson, David M.
Poncelet, Claude G.
Poole, John Owen
Powell, Gary D.
Prak, Jan W. L.
Pronchinske, Alex
Proni, John R.
Puckett, James
Qui Ruoyi
Raichle, Brian W.
Ramakrishnan, Prabha K.
Rasch, Kevin
Rayner, Gilbert B.
Ren, Jie, J.
Rice, Theodore R.
Richards, Evan Thomas
Roberts, Thomas G.
Robinson, William R.
Rodrigueaz, Brian J.
Roman, Michael
Rudder, Ronald A.
Russwurm, George M.
Sakon, John J.
Saleh, Abdelkarim M.
Sales, Kenneth B.
Sandin, Andreas
Scannell, Edward P.
Scarfone, Christopher
Schardt, Randall J.
Schneider, Thomas P.
Seykora, Edward J.
Shalaby, Abouzeid M.
Sheets, Steven
Shmagin Irina K.
Page 152 2012
2010
2006
2007
1980
1973
1991
1967
2004
1965
2007
2000
1970
2012
1970
2012
2012
1997
1984
2012
2002
1992
1983
2010
1967
2010
2003
2012
1985
1981
2011
1984
1980
2012
1976
1998
1990
1994
1968
2004
2007
1997
Smith, Bennett M.
Smith, John R.
Smith, Joshua R.
Smith, Richard S III
Sowers, Andrew T.
Snyder, Michelle
Sparks, Ronald G.
Srinivas, Sundar
Stevens, Derrick
Stephens, Douglas J.
Stephenson, Sharon L.
Stone, Craid D.
Stringfield, Ray M.
Sundameya, Anderson
Swank, Christopher
Tadros, Alfred S.
Tang, Yingjie
Tavukcu, Emel
Taylor, Michael
Tedesco, Joseph
Thaxton, Christopher S.
Thompson, Richard
Tipton, Charles A.
Titus, Aaron P.
Tokunaga, Yukihisa
Treado, Todd A.
Tsai, John S
Tsu, David V.
Tucker, Eric C.
Turner, Kevin F.
Vanajakshi C. T.
Vanderweide, Jacob
Vavrina, Gereard A.
Vladimirov, Andrey
Wagner, Lucas Kyle
Wakefield, Robert H. Jr.
Walston, Joseph R.
Wang, Cheng
Wang, Cheng
Wang, Chinhsiang
Wang, Jih-Fu T.
Wang, Qingsheng
1971
1983
2007
1985
1999
2011
1991
2011
2009
1996
1996
1992
1978
2007
2012
1984
2007
2002
2007
2008
2004
2010
1982
1998
2012
1989
1980
1989
1995
1992
1984
1993
1996
2009
2006
1968
1998
1991
2008
1991
2002
1994
Page 153 Wang, Shuchun
Wang, YunYu
Wang, Zhengang
Ward, Brandon L.
Ward, David A.
Ward, Linton B. Jr.
Ware, Morgan E.
Washington, Joseph St. Paul
Waytena, Gail L.
Weatherford, Shawn A.
Welt, Martin A.
Wensell, Mark G.
Westfall, Frederick R.
Wessels, Laura R.
Williams, Brian Jeffrey
Williams, John R. Jr.
Williams, Meredith J.
Williams, Robert A. Jr.
Wimpey, James F.
Winder, Steven M.
Winsett, Donald A.
Wong, Chi K.
Wright, Eric B.
Wu, Dong
Xu, Shu
Xu, Yanping
Yang, Chen-Yui
Yan, Hongping
Yang, Woochul
Yi, Jae-Yel
Yoo, Sang-Duk
York, James W. Jr.
Yu, Liping
Yu, Segi
Zeman, Matthew
Zhang, Shan M.
Zhang, Xiyao
Zhang, Yu
Zhaq, Qingzong
Zhou, Chungda
Zhou, Weiqing
Page 154 2006
2004
2012
2000
1986
1981
2002
2010
1992
2011
1965
1996
1962
2009
2010
1974
1994
1993
1974
2003
2002
1986
1999
2009
2012
2006
1987
2012
2001
1991
1999
1966
2009
1997
2007
1993
2006
2005
2003
2012
1991
TABLE 8. Ph. D. Graduates Listed Alphabetically
*These degrees were in Engineering Physics
3.
Statement from a Distinguished Alumnus
Remembrances of my days in the NC State Department of Physics
C. Russell Philbrick (‘BS 1962, ‘MS 1964, PhD 1966)
Current: Professor of Electrical Engineering, Penn State University and Adjunct
Professor in Physics and MEAS at NCSU
I recall so many wonderful challenging days during my time at NC State. I
entered NCSU in the Fall Semester of 1958 in the Engineering Physics Department, and
spent most of my days during the next eight years on the campus. Having grown up in
Cary, the campus and the Raleigh area were already known to me. I met Prof. Rufus
Snyder from the Engineering Physics Department during my days at Cary High School.
By the time I was 12 years old, I knew that I wanted to study topics in the field of
physics. My early ventures with making rockets and mixing fuels using various
chemicals, bought at the two Cary drugstores with money earned from my paper route,
did not result in any serious accidents. My first research proposal, as a sophomore at Cary
High in 1955, resulted in $600 funding from the WPTF Radio Station to fund a “Moon
Watch Station.” These stations were organized under the Smithsonian Observatory to
provide the initial tracking data for the satellites in the Vanguard Program. Those
satellites were too small to observe with the naked eye and so it was necessary to
purchase twelve low-power and wide-field telescopes to instrument a meridian line for
one of these stations. In 1956, I sought out Prof. Snyder, who taught Astronomy and had
a nice Observatory on the roof of Daniels, to be an advisor to our Moon Watch Station.
The team was composed of about twenty students from the Cary High Science Club, and
Prof Snyder helped the group learn the constellations and become more familiar with the
nighttime sky. Our team was training for the Vanguard during summer and fall of 1957,
and so we were prepared to be one of the first stations that observed and reported tracking
data for the Sputnik launch on October 4, 1957.
I remember that first day of the Fall Semester of 1958 and a huge meeting of the
freshman class in Reynolds Auditorium – when they told us to look around, that many of
us would not make it to the graduation – the typical inspirational speech. My major
impressions for the freshman year included the Chemistry classes and labs in Withers
Hall, the Calculus classes in Tompkins Hall, and the English classes in Winston Hall.
One of the special courses, required by the program in those years, was a one-credit-hour
metal forming class – the ability to use tools, including a lathe and milling machine,
really paid off over the years (particularly in being capable of making the things needed
for graduate research, and knowing how to interact with machine shops to make many
different instruments and sensors over the years).
During my sophomore year, two major things provided the most important
memories, interesting physics classes and marriage to my wonderful wife. During my
college years, I tried to take every class related to physics, while working from 4PM to
midnight, consequently I learned to survive with very little sleep. I found a couple of
Page 155 quiet small places in the D. H. Hill Library where I could study between classes. The
demonstrations in the Physics lectures in Daniels Hall are still a vivid memory,
particularly the tin can, released by an electromagnet, which caught the ball bearing shot
from across the room, and the E&M demonstrations using Wimshurst and Van de Graaff
machines. Also, the ROTC drills, the Pershing Rifles Drill Team, Arnold Air Society, and
the different PE classes cannot be forgotten – I really liked the semesters that I was able
to sign up for golf and bowling.
My Junior and Senior years are memorable, particularly the labs; Millikan’s oil
drop, Helmholz coil, electron beam, Faraday’s and Ampere’s experiments, optical
spectra, and many others. As I recall, each of the four semesters required a minimum of
two physics classes; mechanics, dynamics, thermodynamics, electromagnetics, optics,
quantum, atomic, nuclear, and plasma physics. I also remember many of the professors
during those days: Rufus Snyder, Ed Manring, Forest Lancaster, Tommy Lynn, Arthur
Waltner, Willard Bennett, Wes Doggett, Bill Davis, Richard Patty, Marvin Moss, Grover
Cobb, Gerald Katzin, Jasper Memory, Bob Dough, Hugh Owen, Ray Steinbeck ---- also,
memories of the machine shops, and Mr. Perdergraft and Mr. Hill.
There were many interesting places in the Daniels Hall. Because of my early
connection with Dr. Snyder, I was able to borrow his key and go most any night to the
small observatory on the roof of Daniels to use the telescopes there. One of my favorite
places to visit and “play” was the room next to the lecture room where all of the
wonderful demonstration experiments were kept for the sophomore lectures. During one
summer, I think it was between my Senior year and first year in graduate school, I
assisted Dr. R. L. Dough in rewriting the laboratory manual for all of the Junior and
Senior Labs. That also included making sketches for the experiment setups – many of my
sketches and experiment descriptions were still being used in the lab manual many years
after I left. One other very interesting place to visit was the glass-blowing shop of Stan
Mezynski – what an artist he was. I still have a Christmas ornament that he gave to me
one year. About 1962 the Physics Department (now under the PAMS College) moved
into the new building (now Cox Hall). The laboratory in which I worked was on the
ground floor corner closest to the Bureau of Mines Building, and adjacent to the
laboratory shared by Professors Manring and Patty. I found three other places most
interesting: the large Van de Graaff generator with the control room in the basement of
the Bureau of Mines, the Burlington Nuclear Reactor Building, and a room in the first
floor of Broughton Hall with a Czochralski growth chamber for crystal fabrication.
I recall my earliest visits to Dean Menius’s office in Riddick to obtain his
signature for permission to take more than 21 credit hours in several semesters. Many
things about Dr. Bennett are remembered – I liked the study of plasma physics and took
three courses with him during my undergraduate and graduate days. He told interesting
stories such as; the trick that Thompson used to scare off bullies by throwing a piece of
sodium into a mud puddle. I also remember the anecdotes of Grover Cobb talking about
‘Schrödinger’s cat and other things to try to encourage our understanding in the quantum
class. In one discussion with Dr. Wes Doggett, I remember asking about what was inside
the nucleus, and why the neutrons and protons were considered the smallest parts of
matter. I remember his answer was that they were most likely not the smallest, and in not
too many years the whole field of sub-atomic particles exploded. The two faculty that I
remember the best are the ones with whom I remained closest during the years since, Drs.
Dick Patty and Ed Manring. I recall many lunches with Manring and Patty, and with my
fellow graduate student Jack Gardner, during the days in graduate school.
Page 156 One of the things that all graduate students remember is confronting the
candidacy exams. I still have the notebooks that contain my solutions for the five sets of
prior exams and all of the important course final exams. As much as I disliked the exams
at the time, I now realize that this was a most important time in making a foundation that
would not have come without such pressure. We had five days of exams covering ten
topic areas. We appear to be much easier on the students now. After six months of
preparation, I think a most important thing was that Jack Gardner and I went to a ‘James
Bond’ double feature movie on the Sunday night before that week – we both passed.
Prof. Manring taught optics and I remember being afraid of his questions because
they were always initially difficult and required thoughtful analysis, but I always
appreciated learning much from trying to find an answer. His difficult questions that were
asked with a twinkle in the eye, beneath heavy eyebrows, were his trademarks. He is the
one who gave me the good advice on pursuing my first job. When my dissertation was in
the last stages, I was given a choice of assignment for my active duty in the Air Force.
Having switched from a primary AFSC of “pilot” to “scientific and technical” when I
entered the graduate program, there were four technical opportunities offered. Dr.
Manring had come to NCSU from the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory. Based
on discussions with him, that laboratory was my choice. I served my first three years as
1st Lieutenant and Captain, and then the next 18 years I enjoyed many challenging
opportunities as a Civil Servant. His advice was sound; he said it was the best DoD
laboratory and that if I went there and worked hard, that I would find great support for
my research – and I did. Two special science opportunities occurred at NCSU because I
was working on early laser developments in the lab next to Dr. Manring. On one day, he
suggested that we plan an experiment for that evening using my laser and his
transportable telescope with a monochrometer. We pushed our instruments out the back
door that evening and recorded laser returns from clouds and from the molecular
atmosphere while aiming the 2-joule pulsed ruby laser past the Bureau of Mines and over
the top of Broughton Hall – if we had written and reported that experiment in 1963, it
would have been the first report of lidar by more than one year. The second opportunity
resulted in my first scientific field trip. Dr. Manring asked if I would like to accompany
him to the Outer Banks to observe a high altitude release of chemicals from a rocket that
was to be launched from Wallops Island, VA. He had several instruments already set up
at a coastal site to record the event. The launch was just before dawn and was absolutely
spectacular. The release included TMA at low altitude (~120 km) which is chemiluminescent with atomic oxygen, and a barium puff release up near 180 km – the barium
exhibits blue-white scatter from sunlight on the neutral cloud, and a red streak along the
magnetic field from the ionized component. Also, that night Dr. Manring showed me how
to observe the Gegenshein (zodiacal light) from the sunlight scattering by the dust in
ecliptic plane. Both of these events were strongly related to my later research: the
investigations of the atmospheric dynamics and chemistry (1966-1987), and development
of Raman lidar for atmospheric remote sensing (1977-present).
Dr. Richard Patty inspired much in my work while in graduate school. His
graduate course in molecular physics laid the foundation in the central theme of much
that I have worked on during the years since. He has been the faculty member with whom
I have most kept in contact. We have visited together many times in Raleigh, and he and
Nell have visited with us in Pennsylvania a couple of times. We enjoy common interests
in physics, art, and food. I think that he and Dr. Manring represent the roles that I most
Page 157 remember and that I have tried to emulate as a professor at Penn State University during
these past 19 years.
My first unforgettable business trip was with Dean Arthur Menius in 1962. He
was Scientific Advisor to Army Redstone Arsenal during those days. I was employed as a
Research Assistant for him during my graduate work. Since I was commissioned in the
USAF in 1962 and already had my security clearance, it was possible for him to take me
to Huntsville with him and I did go several times. That first trip was particularly
memorable because we flew an Eastern Airlines Electra from Raleigh to Atlanta and then
a DC-3 to Huntsville. There were always interesting demonstrations presented during his
visit. I remember once they were demonstrating a new large Nd:Glass laser rod for high
power applications – in those days the laser was envisioned as a future weapon system.
On a second test, they set the power level too high and exploded the whole laser head
assembly, damaging one end of their laboratory. On another trip, they were
demonstrating a new high power CO2 laser for him, and were measuring the power level
in the number of cast iron frying pans that the pulse burned through. During one of our
trips, he took me over to the NASA facility and I had a chance to meet Dr. Wernher von
Braun. In those days most of the space program launch vehicle preparation and testing
was going on there; I remember being particularly impressed by some of the static test
stands they were using there.
I remember the day that Dean Menius handed me the keys to his Jaguar to drive
somewhere to pickup some electronics that we needed. We made many trips to the state
salvage warehouse to buy things that could be used for our research. I remember buying
many large high-voltage rated oil-filled capacitors to build up a high energy device to
discharge flash lamps for a large laser. The support that Dean Menius was able to bring
into the department was important in building up several research programs. We had ruby
laser equipment available for experiments within months after its invention and that
resulted in many exciting experiments that were described between our laboratory and
several other laboratories by frequent phone reports.
Dr. Bill Davis was my doctoral advisor. I really enjoyed the ideas he presented in
the graduate classes, and I think he was a bit disappointed that I did not want to focus my
efforts on his investigations of field symmetries. At least my friend, Jimmy York, did go
to work on those topics with him. My goal was to combine theoretical ideas with a major
effort in laboratory research. I remember my first trip to an APS meeting in Washington,
DC during graduate school with Dr. Marvin Moss. I still owe much to my graduate
committee; Professors Davis, Patty, Moss, Menius, and Manring.
Page 158 4.
SAT Scores of Entering Freshmen, Showing Preeminence of the NC State
Department of Physics
The SAT scores of entering freshmen in physics has been consistently among the
highest in the university averaging 1325 over the previous 13 years at the time of this
writing. During this period, the departmental entrance SAT was always among the
highest on the entire campus and the highest of all departments most of those years.
5.
Sigma Pi Sigma
History of Sigma Pi Sigma Chapter at North Carolina State University - remarks
used at the 1995 Sigma Pi Sigma award presentations (updated membership numbers
available in department office):
Until 1960 the Physics Department was in the School of Engineering.
Around 1950, Dean Lampe of the School of Engineering brought in
Clifford Beck as Department Head, and together they decided to start a
new degree program in nuclear engineering. Several new physics faculty
were hired, and the bachelors, masters and PhD programs were launched.
Undergraduates from other engineering curricula were recruited into the
new curriculum. In addition arrangements were made in 1951 to send
about 30 officers from the Air Force Institute of Technology to enter into
the appropriate nuclear engineering degree programs (BNE, MS or PhD).
Two BNE’s graduated in 1951, and the first regular class graduated in
1952. One year later the NCSU chapter of Sigma Pi Sigma was installed,
on March 26, 1953. The founder, and first member, was Forrest Lancaster,
who had gotten his PhD three years earlier. Most of the early Sigma Pi
Sigma members had degrees in nuclear engineering. In 1963 the College
of Physical and Mathematical Sciences was created, and the Physics
faculty and students in the nuclear engineering program moved to the
newly formed Physics Department.
Some of our earliest members are still among us. Included in the first
ceremony was Gerald Katzin, a Professor of Physics here at NCSU. Art
Menius, retired Dean of the College of Physical and Mathematical
Sciences, and founder of the College was number 41. Wesley Doggett,
recently retired, was inducted in December 1960.
Worth Seagondollar became chapter adviser in 1968, and continued in this
role for 25 years, serving at one time also as National Sigma Pi Sigma
President. He retired in 1992 and Chris Gould is now the chapter adviser.
The new group of inductees today brings our membership to 714. This
puts us among the largest chapters in the US—a tribute to the early
founders of our chapter, and to Worth Seagondollar for his many
contributions to the organization over the last twenty five years.
Page 159 (Nationally, there are 60,000 members in 382 active chapters distributed
among 46 states of the Union. The organization was founded in 1932 at
Davidson College.)
Professor Gould would serve as advisor until 1998, with the chapter receiving
Outstanding Chapter Awards in 1992, 1993, 1995 and 1996. He has been succeeded by
John Blondin (1998-2008) and Dean Lee (2008-present).
6.
Park Scholars
The Park Scholarship at NC State University provides excellent opportunities for
talented students. The scholarship includes the full cost of education and all related
expenses. This table lists the Park Scholars who have majored in physics.
Last Name
Baumann
Murray
Dilday
Hoag
Scheunemann
Kirby
Darby
Hines
Johnson
Mowrer
Schlegel
Stanley
Brockman
Carbonell
McFarland
Parker
Bilbro
Hodges
Warren, III
Williard
Speller
Neely, III
Meier
Phillips
Riggs
Boyne
Steiner
Wooten
De Los Reyes
Draelos
First Name
Anthony
David
John
Daniel
Leslie
Alana
Mark
Joshua
Erik
Timothy
Alexander
John
Justin
David
Amber
Omar
Lucas
Jerome
Donald
Mary
Danielle
Ryan
Nathan
Katherine
Laura
Philip
Adam
Daniel
Mithi
Mark
Middle Name
Richard
Franklin
Seth
Timothy
Page
Elizabeth
Jonathan
Robert
Rollin
David
Aaron
Robey
Samuel
Andres
Leigh
Savage
IV
Cameron
Margaret
Hope
R
Marsh
Collett Furr
Pinckney
M.
Alexa
Page 160 Class
1999
2001
2001
2001
2001
2002
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2004
2005
2005
2005
2005
2006
2006
2006
2007
2007
2008
2008
2008
2008
2009
2010
2010
2011
2011
Dunn
Watson
Adam
Anne
2012
2012
TABLE 9: Park Scholars-Listed Chronologically
Last Name
Baumann
Bilbro
Boyne
Brockman
Carbonell
Darby
De Los Reyes
Dilday
Draelos
Dunn
Hines
Hoag
Hodges
Johnson
Kirby
McFarland
Meier
Mowrer
Neely, III
Murray
Parker
Phillips
Riggs
Scheunemann
Schlegel
Speller
Stanley
Steiner
Warren, III
Watson
Williard
Wooten
First Name
Anthony
Lucas
Philip
Justin
David
Mark
Mithi
John
Mark
Adam
Joshua
Daniel
Jerome
Erik
Alana
Amber
Nathan
Timothy
Ryan
David
Omar
Katherine
Laura
Leslie
Alexander
Danielle
John
Adam
Donald
Anne
Mary
Daniel
Middle Name
Richard
Savage
Pinckney
Samuel
Andres
Jonathan
Alexa
Seth
Robert
Timothy
IV
Rollin
Elizabeth
Leigh
Marsh
David
R
Franklin
Collett Furr
Elizabeth
Page
Aaron
Hope
Robey
M.
Cameron
Margaret
TABLE 10: Park Scholars-Listed Alphabetically
Page 161 Class
1999
2006
2009
2005
2005
2004
2012
2001
2011
2012
2004
2001
2006
2004
2002
2005
2008
2004
2008
2001
2005
2008
2008
2001
2004
2007
2004
2010
2006
2012
2007
2010
VI.
References and Sources
Information has been obtained for this history from NC State University Archives
(to whom are due acknowledgement and thanks for the use of many of the historical
photographs), Official University Records, NC State University Web pages, and
individual contributions by NC State University faculty and staff.
The following contributed significantly to the write-ups of specific sections:
Richard Patty (Advancement to National Prominence: 1975-1995), Christopher Gould
(Further Advancement; Restructuring of the Research Base: 1995-2005), Michael Paesler
(Shift Toward the Life Science and Increase in Academic Quality of Graduate Students:
2005-2012), David Haase (The Science House), John Risley (WebAssign and Advanced
Instructional Systems, Inc.), and Jerzy Bernholc (Center for High Performance
Simulations-CHiPS).
FIGURE 46: PAMS Dean Daniel L. Solomon (left) with Drs. Christopher Gould and
Michael Paesler, 2008.
Page 162 VII.
A.
Appendices
Figures
Figure #
A
B
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
Description
Page
Current and former department heads
Authors, Dr. Jasper Memory and Raymond Fornes
Charles M. Heck (1939)
Dr. Rufus Snyder (1951)
Dean J. Harold Lampe, (1955)
Dr. Clifford K. Beck (1950)
Drs. Beck, Murray, Menius, Waltner and Underwood (1951)
Burlington Reactor
Dr. Menius and Dr. Stainback moving into Cox Hall (1964)
Drs. Dogett and Bennett in the Plasma Lab
Dr. Llewellyn H. Thomas
Dr. Richard Patty (2008)
Drs. Schetzina and Briggs with Ford Aerospace (1983)
Dr. Gerry Lucovsky
Dr. Haase, Dean Whitten, & Gov. Jim Hunt at The Science House
President George H. W. Bush and Dr. Jan Schetzina (1990)
Science Vol. 254, num 5039, December 20th 1991.
Scientific American: October 1996
Physics Today, September 1999
Science News, July 22, 2000
The Physics Teacher, March 2006
Dr. Jacqueline Krim
Dr. John Risley (2008)
Dr. Robert Beichner in SCALE-UP classroom (2008)
Dr. David Aspnes
Dr. Jerzy “Jerry” Bernholc
Heads Seagondollar, Patty, Murray, Paesler, and Gould with
Deans Briggs and Solomon
Marching Histogram
Physics Department retreat (2010)
Chancellor Woodson addressing PAMS faculty (2010)
Physics Advisory Board
Middle school outreach
Dr. Brand Fortner
John Risley, Dellaine Risley, Dr. Paesler and Dan Solomon (2011)
Dr. Gary Mitchell
Dr. Dale E. Sayers
Graduation Ceremony (2010)
The McCormick Symposium poster session
Admission statistics for physics Graduat students 1996-2012
GRE subject scores for applied, admitted, and enrolled students
Time of completion for incoming grad students
Page 163 4
4
8
9
10
11
13
13
15
17
19
21
23
24
25
28
30
30
31
31
32
35
35
36
37
38
42
43
44
45
47
48
51
52
52
53
54
57
58
58
59
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
2.
Dr. John Blondin
Work of Dr. John Blondin on Science cover June 1, 2012
Work of Dr. Herald Ade on Advance Materials cover, January 2013
Physics Grant Funding
Renovated Riddick Hall (2005)
Riddick Hearth
Dean Solomon, and Drs. Gould and Paesler (2008)
60
60
61
66
69
71
161
Tables
Table #
Description
Page
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Nationally recognized honors to Faculty
Physics Grant expenditures 1989-2012
L. H. Thomas Lecture Series
NC State Physics Faculty listed Alphabetically
NC State Physics Faculty listed by Date of Hire
Number of Undergraduate Physics Degrees awarded
Ph. D. graduates listed chronologically
Ph. D. graduates listed alphabetically
Park Scholars listed Chronologically
Park Scholars listed Alphabetically
46
65
79
80
83
49
136
145
159
160
Page 164