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In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Edward F. (Joe) Redish, professor emeritus of physics at the University of Maryland. Redish reflects on the symbiotic nature of his interest in nuclear theory and physics education, and he describes his long collaboration in the latter field of Lillian McDermott. He recounts his childhood on Long Island and his developing interests in math and science. Redish describes his undergraduate education at Princeton where he was mentored by John Wheeler in studying unified electromagnetic fields from a pedagogical perspective. He discusses getting to know Charles Misner at Princeton, and he explains his decision to go to MIT for graduate school, where he conducted his thesis research under the direction of Felix Villars on nuclear reactions using quantum field theory. Redish explains the opportunities leading to his postdoctoral appointment at the Center for Theoretical Physics at Maryland and ultimately his ability to join the faculty and achieve tenure in the physics department there, in recognition of his work in three-body clustering problems. He describes the lengthy intellectual process of switching over entirely to physics education research in the early 1980s and why teaching at a large public university proved to be the ideal pedagogical proving ground for his interests. Redish discusses his entrée to the world of AAPT and what he saw as some of the orthodoxies in the field that were ripe for change, including making the field more student-centric. He describes his current project, NEXUS/Physics, which is an introductory physics for life sciences class that he developed in partnership with biologists, and he explains how this fits with his personal research interests that have delved recently into the biological realm. Redish explains the difficulty in mentoring physics education graduate students because of the expectation of their mastery of both physics and pedagogy, and at the end of the interview, he describes the Resources Framework that he is building as akin to a grand unified theory of physics education. 

Interview with Eugenia Etkina, Distinguished Professor of Science Education in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University. She laments the absence of pedagogical considerations in the approach most physicists take to teaching in their area of expertise, and she describes the opportunities to work with physicists to improve their teaching skills. Etkina talks about appreciating the culture of physics as an instrumental part of teaching the next generation to ensure advancement in discovery. She recounts her upbringing in Moscow where her father was a physicist and the social and educational constraints she experienced as a Jewish person. Etkina describes her education at Moscow State Pedagogical University and her interest in teaching physics, which she pursued at a prestigious high school in Moscow. She explains the origins of Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) and the benefits that Glasnost and Perestroika had on teachers in Russia. Etkina describes her dissertation research, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the opportunities that allowed for her emigration to the United States to join the faculty at Rutgers. She describes the adoption of the ISLE approach all over the world and she reflects on the role of science education in combatting science skepticism. At the end of the interview, Etkina reflects on the most important feedback mechanism to determine how to improve pedagogical approaches, and she shares her hope for ISLE to be adopted in every physics classroom.

Discussion includes childhood and education; his interest in physics and graduate school at Cornell; war work at Los Alamos; reaction to Trinity and Hiroshima; Los Alamos Association of Scientists; Feynman; ethical questions about nuclear weapons; move to Ohio State University and more x-ray physics work; his management style as department chair at OSU; the formationof and his work with the Commission of College Physics; transfer of teaching ideas to other areas of science; training teaching assistants; reaction of other physicists to Jossem's work; involvement with American Association of Physics Teachers; AAPT committee on teacher preparation for elementary and secondary school; his involvement with the International Commission on Physics Education; UNESCO; and physics as a universal language.

In this interview, Charles Misner discusses his career in physics. Topics discussed include: John Wheeler; relativity; Arthur Wightman; Arnold Ross; Robert H. Dicke; Carl H. Brans; microwave background radiation.

This interview with Jim Stith was conducted following his retirement as Vice President of the AIP’s Physics Resource Center. It covers his childhood in rural Virginia, and how he became interested in science, attendance at segregated schools, and at Virginia State University, where he received a BS degree in physics 1963 and an MS in physics in 1964. It discusses his work in physics under John Hunter, the third African-American to receive a PhD in the subject. The interview then covers his drafting into the Army during the Vietnam War, and his work in air defense in Korea, as well as his brief and successful career as an associate engineer at RCA under Bob Pontz. His graduate education and obtaining of a D.Ed degree in physics in 1972 at Pennsylvania State University is discussed. The interview then focuses on his lengthy career as an instructor of physics at the United States Military Academy at West Point (1972-1993), his experiences as an African-American physicist, and his work in the field of physics education. The remainder of the interview concentrates on his move to teach and research physics education at The Ohio State University, his involvement with the American Association of Physics Teachers, and his work at AIP.

Interview with Peter Lepage, Tisch Family Distinguished University Professor of Physics at Cornell. He recounts his childhood in Montreal and his decision to pursue an undergraduate degree in physics at McGill. Lepage discusses his Master’s work at Cambridge University and his decision to do his thesis research in particle physics at Stanford. He describes the fundamental advances happening at SLAC during his graduate years and his work on bound states of electrons and muons under the direction of Stanley Brodsky. Lepage discusses his postdoctoral appointment at Cornell and his work in high-precision QED calculations in atoms, and he describes the foundational impact of Ken Wilson’s work on lattice QCD and the intellectual revolution of renormalization. He describes this period as his entrée into QCD research, and he emphasizes the beauty of Ithaca and the supportive culture of the Physics Department as his main reasons to accept a faculty position at Cornell. Lepage explains how and when computers became central to Lattice QCD research and why effective field theory was an area of specialization that was broadly useful in other subfields. He describes the ongoing stubbornness of the Standard Model, and he discusses his tenure as chair of the department, then as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and his work on PCAST in the Obama administration. Lepage explains his longstanding interest in physics pedagogy, and he discusses his current work on the numerical integration program called VEGAS. In the last part of the interview, Lepage emphasizes that the most fundamental advances in physics are in astrophysics and cosmology and that lattice QCD should be “kept alive” because it’s unclear where it is going until physics goes beyond the Standard Model.

Interview with David Sokoloff, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Oregon. Sokoloff discusses his focus on improving physics education at the collegiate level, and the programs and methods he has implemented to ensure that the state of physics education, both domestically and internationally, continues to advance. He discusses the workshops he has organized around the world for the development of Active Learning in Optics and Photonics (ALOP). These workshops also involve Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs), which Sokoloff has utilized throughout his career as a physics educator. He also reflects on creating Home-Adapted ILDs during COVID so that students could continue learning about these concepts during the pandemic. Sokoloff talks about how he has grappled with active throughout the pandemic, when so many aspects of education have been forced online. He discusses the challenges of replicating live learning situations through online platforms. Sokoloff then looks back on his time at MIT and his engagement with local and national politics during the 1960s and 1970s, particularly with the Teacher Corps. He returns to his discussions of Active Learning workshops and his multi-year collaboration with Priscilla Laws and Ron Thornton. Towards the end of the interview, Sokoloff remarks upon his experiences as a rep to the U.S. Liaison Committee for the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, a rep to the International Commission on Physics Education, and a recipient of the Oersted Medal. Sokoloff rounds out the conversation discussing the importance of active learning in physics education, as well as how vital it is that students are given the space and opportunity to question ideas, make mistakes, and speak up for themselves.