Larry Woolf

It is a pleasure to recognize and congratulate our members, shown below, who have recently been elected to APS Fellowship upon nomination by the Forum on Education for their significant contributions to physics education. (Brief Bios of each Fellow follow.)

Noah Finkelstein (University of Colorado, Boulder)
Citation: For advancing physics education research through studies of student learning in context and for extensive professional service at all levels from individual mentoring, to developing model programs, to national advocacy.

Chandralekha Singh (University of Pittsburgh)
Citation: For pioneering research extending the impact of physics education research to advanced topics, especially quantum mechanics, and for leadership in organizing physics education activities at the national level.

The APS is now accepting nominations for the 2012 class of APS Fellows.

The deadline for consideration by the FEd is April 2, 2012, and we encourage members to nominate outstanding candidates. Instructions for preparing nominations are available on APS website.

The FEd Fellowship committee consisted of the following members:

Ruth Chabay, North Carolina State University
Peter Collings, Swarthmore College
Lynn Cominsky, Sonoma State University
Bruce Mason, University of Oklahoma
Lawrence Woolf, General Atomics, Chair

Larry Woolf, a physicist at General Atomics, is the Past Chair of the APS Forum on Education.

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Noah Finkelstein received a Bachelor's degree in mathematics from Yale University and his PhD. for work in applied physics from Princeton University. He is currently an Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and conducts research in physics education. He serves as a director of the Physics Education Research (PER) group at Colorado, one of the largest research groups in physics education. Finkelstein is PI or Co-PI on many nationally funded research grants to create and study conditions that support students' interest and ability in physics. These research projects range from the specifics of student learning to the departmental and institutional scales, and have resulted in over 80 publications. Finkelstein is also a co-PI and a Director of the Integrating STEM Education initiative (iSTEM), an NSF-i3 funded program to establish a national-scale Center for STEM Learning. He is also a key figure in the Colorado Learning Assistant program that is designed to transform undergraduate education and recruit and prepare the next generation of STEM teachers. Finkelstein is increasingly involved in policy, and in 2010, he testified before the US Congress on the state of STEM education at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Finkelstein has and continues to serve on many national boards in physics education, including: Inaugural Member (2006) and Vice-Chair (2008) of the Physics Education Research Leadership Organizing Council, and Chair (2011, 2012) of the Committee on Education of the American Physical Society. He is a member of the technical advisory board for the AAU's Initiative for Improving Undergraduate STEM Education 2011, and is very involved in APLU's efforts in the Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative.

In 2007 he won the campus-wide teaching award; in 2009 he won the campus Diversity and Excellence award; and in 2010 he won the campus Graduate Advising Award.

More information:

on Noah: http://spot.colorado.edu/~finkelsn
on PER: http://per.colorado.edu
on the LA program: http://stem.colorado.edu/la-program
on studies of transforming STEM: http://www.stemreform.org
on a Center for STEM education: http://www.colorado.edu/istem

Chandralekha Singh is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh. She obtained her Ph.D. in theoretical condensed matter physics from the University of California Santa Barbara and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, before joining the faculty at University of Pittsburgh. She has been conducting research in physics education for more than a decade. She is a pioneer in conducting educational research related to the teaching and learning of quantum mechanics.

She has co-organized two physics education research conferences. She was the co-chair of the 2010 Gordon Conference on Physics Research and Education and was the guest co-editor of the May 2010 Gordon Conference theme issue of the American Journal of Physics. She co-organized the first conference which brought together physicists, chemists and engineers from various engineering departments to discuss the future of materials science and engineering education in 2008. She is currently Chair of the APS Forum on Education.

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Disclaimer- The articles and opinion pieces found in this issue of the APS Forum on Education Newsletter are not peer refereed and represent solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the APS.