CU Physics Professor Mike Dubson was recently highlighted in an Associated Press article that focused on clicker use at CU. Dubson's innovative use of clickers in the classroom prompted discussion about the evolving use of technology in education.
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Latest News:
University of Colorado Boulder Department of Physics Ranked Number 1 by U.S. News
The University of Colorado Department of Physics has been ranked as the number one school in the nation for atomic, molecular and optical physics, according to U.S. News and World Report's graduate school report. This ties CU Boulder's AMO program with that of MIT for the best graduate school program in the nation. Quantum physics was ranked as fifth, according to the report.
Overall, the Department of Physics is 19th out of 145 ranked schools.
According to their Web site, U.S. News ranks graduate programs in the sciences according to the results of surveys sent to academics in various scientific fields. Those surveyed were ask to rate the quality of graduate programs of their peers.
Cindy Regal Wins Packard Fellowship
Cindy Regal, a University of Colorado assistant professor of physics and associate fellow of JILA, has been awarded the prestigious David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation established the fellowship “to allow the nation’s most promising professors to pursue science and engineering research early in their careers with few funding restrictions and limited paperwork requirements.” This year, sixteen fellows were selected from 100 applicants across leading 50 universities.
The five-year, $875,000 fellowship will fund Regal’s work in experimental atomic physics. She is interested in developing techniques to control single neutral atoms with lasers and create small quantum gases that can be manipulated at the single-atom level, for applications in quantum information science and in modeling physics of complex materials.
“I am delighted to receive this award and am very grateful to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. My research group looks forward to having flexible resources to attack a challenging problem,” Regal says.
Regal joins CU physics professors Michael Hermele, Shijie Zhong, Leo Radzihovsky, and John Price who were awarded Packard Fellowships in previous years.
Only Princeton leads CU in the number of physics faculty members who have been awarded Packard Fellowships.
Other Packard Fellows at CU-Boulder are Pieter Johnson in ecology, evolutionary biology, Alexis S.Templeton in geological sciences, Kristi S. Anseth in chemical and biological engineering, David Jonas in chemistry and biochemistry, Elizabeth Bradley in computer science, and Barbara Demmig-Adams, in ecology, evolutionary biology.
Regal is also the first professor at the University of Colorado Boulder to earn the prestigious Clare Boothe Luce Professorship Award. The award is designed to, "encourage women to enter, study, graduate and teach in science, mathematics and engineering."
For more information about the Packard Foundation and the 2011 fellowship awards, see the foundation’s web site at www.packard.org.
Contacts: Cindy Regal
CU PhET Program Wins Microsoft Education Award
Congratulations to the CU PhET program for being selected as the winner of the $50,000 Microsoft Education Award at the 2011 Tech Awards banquet in San Jose, California.
The Tech Awards: Technology Benefiting Humanity, awarded five $50,000 prizes to international pacesetters. Kathy Perkins, Director of PhET Interactive Simulations in the University of Colorado Department of Physics, accepted the award on behalf of the CU PhET team.
"On behalf of the entire PhET team, I thank those who make these awards possible – to everyone at the Tech museum and Santa Clara University, to the judges and mentors, to Applied Materials, and a special thanks to Microsoft," says Perkins. "This award will enable us to build a new online teacher support center. We urge everyone to share these simulations with teachers and students around the world. Together, we can work to advance science literacy and education worldwide."
The Tech Awards, a signature progrram of The Tech Museum in San Jose, California, selected PhET from among hundreds of nominations representing 54 countries. Fifteen innovators from around the world who were recognized for applying technology in practical ways to resolve some of the world's most challenging issues. The fifteen laureate finalists spent a week in Silicon Valley meeting with business leaders and philanthropists. Five programs, including PhET, were awarded $50,000 top pizes.
Earlier this month, PhET was announced as a Tech Laureate. On Thursday, PhET was selected as the $50,000 prize recipient of the Microsoft Education Award.
PhET was created by Carl Wieman in 2002 to make science accessible and meaningful to everyone. PhET was designed to provide fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena for free. PhET has created over 100 simulations for teaching and learning science and math. Going beyond traditional educational resources, PhET simulations offer an intuitive, game-like environment where students can learn through scientist-like exploration, where dynamic visual representations make the invisible visible, and where science ideas are connected to real-world phenomena. These simulations are widely used by K12 and university students and instructors worldwide.
With an easy translation process, PhET simulations have been translated into 64 languages by volunteer teachers and scientists throughout the world, allowing students to access these high-quality science teaching and learning tools in their own language. In 2011, the simulations will be used more than 22 million times, reaching over 200 countries and territories around the world.
PhET has been generously supported by Carl Wieman, the Hewlett Foundation, the O’Donnell Foundation, the National Science Foundation, King Saud University, the Kavli Foundation, and the University of Colorado.
View the official news release from The Tech Museum.
