Donald C. Salisbury

Associate Professor of Physics

 

 

I have taught at Austin College since 1987. Prior to that time I worked at a number of institutions, including visiting appointments at Reed College and Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and research positions at the Free University of Berlin. My B. A. is from Oberlin College (1968) and I received my Ph. D. from Syracuse University (1977). My dissertation advisor in relativity theory was Peter G. Bergmann. The high energy particle physicist A. P. Balachandran also played an important role in my formation.

I served as the Chair of the Austin College Physics Department from 1996 to 2005.

My current research activity is in classical and quantum theories of gravity, the history of general relativity, and the history of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. In the past few years I have been fortunate to be able to research and develop courses dealing with the emergence of modern science, initially focusing primarily on Galileo. More recently, in conjunction with research I have been undertaking on Peter Bergmann and his illustrious family, I have taught a January term course on Jewish German intellectuals in the first few decades of the twentieth century. I will be doing a related Freshman orientation course beginning in September 2009. Some of the material from these courses will find its way into a new course that I will be co-teaching with English professor Carol Daeley and Economics professor Danny Nuckols in the Spring of 2010. This will be the new required intermediate topical course in our newly established minor in Global Science, Technology and Society. Danny Nuckols and I are Co-Directors of the program.

Grants from the National Science Foundation have enabled me in the past to support summer undergraduate participation on computer calculations in relativity at the Center for Relativity of the University of Texas at Austin, where I was for several summers appointed a Visiting Scholar. In the summer of 2004 I collaborated with AC students Allison Schmitz and Josh Helpert on campus with the support of an Austin College Priddy Grant. The results of this research on observables in a simple cosmological model have been published in the journal General Relativity and Gravitation. In the summer of 2006 Andy Dao worked with me on the development of Java-based simulations that will eventually be incorporated into an on-line introductory textbook on cosmology. Mason Anders has just completed an Honors thesis under my direction dealing with differences in the notion of time that have arisen in my research with Josep Pons and Kurt Sundermeyer. This is ongoing research. I have also conducted summer research at the University of Barcelona, the University of Florence, the University of Maryland, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. I was fortunate to be able to spend a sabbatical semester at this latter institute from January 20008 through August. I will write some more soon about these ongoing projects.

The Department of Physics at Austin College has a history of innovation in physics teaching. The most recent development was the award of a grant from the Education Division of the National Science Foundation to assist in configuring a computer-based laboratory-classroom for introductory physics and astronomy. I served as a Co-Principal Investigator on the project .

I have taught most of the courses in our Austin College physics curriculum. I have also contributed frequently to the Heritage of Western Culture core. My teaching schedule over the past ten years can be found here.

I was for many years the organizer of a regional colloquium, the North Texas Relativity and Cosmology Seminar, that met mainly at the University of Texas at Dallas. I have served as an elected Physics/Astronomy Councilor of the national Council on Undergraduate Research and I functioned for a year as the physics/astronomy Associate Editor of the Council's Quarterly publication.

Three of my recent January Term courses, in 2003, 2005, and 2007 were devoted to: The Life and Times of Galileo: the Origins of Modern Science (in Florence, Pisa, Siena, Padua, Venice, and Rome - Italy), In the recent past I have also taught Astronomy of Ancient America, an introduction to scientific computing in C, Mesoamerican astronomy, and introductions to relativity and cosmology.

Besides my wide interests within the physics discipline, I try to maintain skills in Spanish, French, German and Italian.

My Curriculum Vitae is available here.

Physics Home Page

 

 

Last Revision June 25, 2009

 

Send questions or comments to: dsalisbury@austincollege.edu