There are exciting things happening in the Physics Department at Austin College.

Home

Did You Know?

Students 

Faculty

Program Information 

Special Opportunities 

Facilities 

Pre-Engineering

After AC

Physics Brochure

 Weather GirlsDid you know…

The Austin College Physics Department is dynamic and innovative

Undergraduate physics students do amazing things at Austin College

Faculty are actively engaged in teaching and research

Unique and exciting courses are commonplace

The Physics Department hosts special events every semester

Students do great things after Austin College
 

The Austin College Physics Department is dynamic and innovative

  • According to the American Institute of Physics, Austin College’s Physics Department ranked in the top third of all four-year institutions across the country (including liberal arts colleges, regional universities, and large research universities) in the number of physics bachelor’s degrees offered in 2005-06. Austin College ranked #1 in Texas and #2 in the Southwest in the number of physics bachelor’s degrees awarded as a percentage of total enrollment.
  • Workshop LabThe innovative Workshop Physics approach used at Austin College provides hands-on opportunities for students to learn physics.  Lectures are replaced with guided learning activities involving prediction, experimentation, and theoretical analysis.  And it works!  Austin College physics students perform significantly better on conceptual physics exams than peers at other institutions with traditional lecture-based formats.
  • Do physics research at Austin College!  Every physics major and minor conducts research with a faculty member as part of the unique Research Experiences in physics courses.  Current research projects include energy efficiency of residential windows, investigation of chaotic electrical circuits, electrical conductivity of nanotubes, and trajectories near a black hole.
  • Austin College Pre-Engineering students are highly coveted at prestigious engineering schools.  Students in the 3-2 Pre-Engineering Program have continued successfully in engineering programs at Washington University, Columbia University, Texas A&M University, and The University of Texas at Dallas in fields such as industrial engineering, civil engineering, and electrical engineering.

Undergraduate physics students do amazing things at Austin College

  • Many physics majors at Austin College also major in another subject such as mathematics, Spanish, art, or religion. 
  • Mars North PolePhysics major Nathan Drake conducted research at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on dust devil tracks near the North Pole of Mars under the supervision of Austin College Associate Professor Dr. David Baker.  His work provided valuable information on possible landing sites for the Mars Phoenix spacecraft currently en route to Mars.  This research was published in Geophysical Research Letters, a top-tier scientific journal.
  • Heather Quantz’s senior honors thesis investigated the vortex dynamics in a single crystal of the high temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O7-d with Dr. Andra Troncalli.  Heather presented the results of this work at the Spring 2007 Meeting of the Texas Section of the American Physical Society.
  • Most physics majors are highly involved in extracurricular activities on campus, including choir, theatre, and Division III athletic teams.
  • Physics graduate Allison Schmitz recently won a Fulbright Scholarship to study general relativity in Barcelona, Spain.  This research expanded on her senior honors thesis with Dr. Don Salisbury on quantum cosmology.
  • Dilini Pinnaduwage, who recently graduated with a Ph.D, in applied physics from Harvard University, completed an honors project in physics with Dr. Larry Robinson as thesis director.   The title of her thesis was “Constructing an External Cavity Diode Laser”.

Faculty are actively engaged in teaching and research

  • Dr. Don Salisbury is a close intellectual descendant of Albert Einstein.  Dr. Salibury’s Ph.D. advisor, Peter Bergmann, was a collaborator and confidant of Einstein. 
  • Dr. David BakerDr. David Baker was recently honored as a finalist for the statewide Minnie Piper Stevens Foundation Professor Teaching Award for superior teaching at the college level.
  • Dr. Larry Robinson does magic (we call it physics) with lasers and mirrors.   When measuring the speed of light or producing 3-D holograms, his students work in a state-of-the-art optics laboratory with a floating optics table and multiple lasers.   Dr. Robinson has held visiting positions at The Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona, The Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, and summer positions at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC.
  • Dr. Andra Troncalli spent Summer 2006 as a visiting research scientist at Argonne National Laboratory conducting superconductivity research.
     
     

Unique and exciting courses are commonplace

  • Nanotechnology is big at Austin College!  As part of Dr. Andra Troncalli’s January Term course, students grew carbon nanotubes in a hot furnace.   The nanotubes were too small to see with the naked eye, but an outside laboratory confirmed their amazing structure.
  • Dr. Don Salisbury led his popular January Term course The Life and Times of Galileo in Italy during January 2007.  Students visited Florence, Pisa, Siena, Padua, Venice, and Rome as they explored settings of ground-breaking 17th century science.
  • With Ricky Duhaime in the Music Department, Dr. Larry Robinson offers a frequently loud but always fun January Term course on the physics of musical instruments.
  • In Dr. David Baker’s course The Day After Tomorrow: Global Climate and Extreme Weather, students analyze the science behind a blockbuster Hollywood movie about global climate change and explore their own questions regarding weather, climate, and the future.

The Physics Department hosts special events every semester

  • The Society of Physics StudentsThe Society of Physics Students (SPS) regularly sponsors campus-wide cookouts, telescope viewing nights, and student-faculty basketball tournaments.
  • The Austin College Physics Colloquium brings researchers from across the country to interact with undergraduate students.  AC students and faculty also present their latest research findings in this seminar series.  Please check out this semester’s Physics Colloquium schedule.


 

Students do great things after Austin College

  • Austin College physics graduates have attended prestigious graduate programs including Harvard, Michigan, Rice, Syracuse, Colorado State, LSU, Texas A&M, Stanford, Penn State, MIT, UT-Dallas, Northwestern, and Arizona.
  • AC physics graduates work at prominent companies, non-profit organizations, and educational institutions such as Texas Instruments, Apple Computer, Dallas Semiconductor, Washington Safety Management Solutions, Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Tyco Electronics Power Systems, Habitat for Humanity, Ft. Worth Independent School District, Austin Peay State University, LSU, and the University of Rochester.

Want more information?  Please send an email to Dr. David Baker, Chair of the Physics Department.