Nobel laureate and incoming University of British Columbia physics professor Carl E. Wieman has been awarded the 2007 Oersted Medal, the highest honour given by the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT).
Given previously to science luminaries that include Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and Hans Bethe, the award recognizes “notable contributions to the teaching of physics.”
Wieman today said that he will donate the $10,000 Oersted Medal prize money as part of a $50,000 personal gift to UBC’s Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI) that he announced earlier this month.
On Nov. 1, Wieman said in a surprise announcement at UBC’s Annual General Meeting: “As our own personal demonstration of the importance that my wife [physicist Sarah Gilbert] and I feel improved education holds for the future of society and the potential of the science education initiative at UBC, we are contributing $50,000 to support it.”
“I hope that there are many other citizens and companies in British Columbia who will feel the same way.”
“Professor Wieman’s generosity and leadership are truly inspiring,” said UBC President Stephen Toope, “and they bode well for the success of his initiative to use the tools of science to benefit the teaching enterprise at UBC.”
Wieman, who arrives full-time at UBC in January from the University of Colorado to develop a $12 million science education reform project, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001 for creating the world’s first Bose-Einstein condensate.
Wieman is a 2001 recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Distinguished Teaching Scholarship Award, and was named the U.S. University Professor of the Year in 2004 by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He currently chairs the National Academy of Sciences’ Board on Science Education.
“Carl stands tall in the tradition of those at the very pinnacle of physics achievement who have become deeply involved with the teaching of physics at all levels and with reaching out to motivate the next generation of physicists,” says Dick Peterson, chair of the AAPT Awards Committee.
Wieman has worked on a variety of innovations in teaching physics to a broad range of students, including the Physics Education Technology Project (on the web at http://www.colorado.edu/physics/phet) that creates educational online interactive simulations.
“Carl Wieman arrives at UBC at a time when support for innovation in teaching and learning has never been higher,” said Dr. Lorne Whitehead, Education Innovation Leader at UBC, and one of the people responsible for bringing Prof. Wieman to the university. “The CWSEI is just one sign of a range of exciting initiatives to enhance the undergraduate learning experience at UBC.”
Wieman will receive the Oersted Medal on Jan. 10, 2007 at the AAPT winter meeting in Seattle. The AAPT is the leading organization for physics educators with more than 10,000 members worldwide. It was founded in 1930 and is headquartered in the American Center for Physics in College Park, Md.
The Oersted Medal is named for Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851), a Danish physicist and chemist who is best known for discovering the relationship between electricity and magnetism known as electromagnetism. The award was established by AAPT in 1936 and is given annually.
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