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Headlines:
"The Changing Faces of Physics"
By: Daniel L. Stein
Let me begin by continuing our fall issue tradition of
welcoming new faculty. We're very pleased to be able to welcome two
new faculty members this year, both of whom are arriving as assistant
professors.
Professor Keith Dienes received his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1991
under Henry Tye, and comes to us from CERN. Keith's research focuses
on physics beyond the Standard Model, both in string theory and in other
sectors of particle physics. He is already well known as a leader in,
and an inventor of, the area that has come to be known as string theory
phenomenology. Keith's presence will catalyze the department's moving
in the new direction (for us) of string theory, one of the major intellectual
thrusts of late 20th century physics. Keith is also an enthusiastic
and gifted teacher and communicator, and his presence will raise the
already high energy levels of the department to the Planck scale and
beyond.
The addition to our faculty of Professor Ingrid Novodvorsky also represents
a major new direction for our department. Ingrid is one of three new
College of Science faculty participating in the fledgling Science Teacher
Preparation Initiative. This is a program designed to train future high
school science teachers in a variety of areas, but focused at this time
on physics, chemistry, biology, and the earth sciences. It has become
fashionable in recent years for university scientists around the country
to bemoan the state of secondary education in the sciences, but less
common for them to do something about it. We are proud and excited to
participate directly in this extremely important enterprise. Ingrid's
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Daniel
L. Stein