University of Oregon

Interviewed by
David Zierler
Interview date
Location
Video conference
Abstract

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. 

Interviewed by
David Zierler
Interview date
Location
Video conference
Abstract

Interview with James Brau, Philip H. Knight Professor of Natural Sciences at the University of Oregon. Brau describes his career-long interest in pursuing physics beyond the Standard Model and his consequent campaign to realize the ILC. He recounts his childhood in Washington, and he describes his early interests in science before enrolling in the U.S. Air Force Academy. Brau explains the opportunities that led him to MIT for graduate school before serving at Kirtland Air Force Base to work in the weapons lab before returning to MIT to complete his PhD where Richard Yamamoto supervised his research on high energy interactions. He describes his postdoctoral appointment at SLAC in the bubble chamber group before taking a faculty position at the University of Tennessee. Brau describes his involvement with SLD at SLAC, and he narrates his involvement with SSC planning while he was transferring to Oregon where he established the Center for High Energy Physics and where he became involved in the LIGO collaboration. He explains the origins of the ILC idea and how his research group joined ATLAS at the LHC. At the end of the interview, Brau reflects on the importance of encouraging public support for fundamental science.

Interviewed by
David Zierler
Interview date
Location
Video conference
Abstract

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews David Wineland, Philip H. Knight Distinguished Research Chair at the University of Oregon. Wineland recounts his childhood in Denver and then Sacramento, and he describes his early interests in math and engineering. He discusses his undergraduate education at University of California Davis and then Berkeley, where Frederick Byron played a formative role in his development as a scientist, and whom he followed to Harvard for graduate school. Wineland discusses working in Norman Ramsey’s lab, and the significance of Dan Kleppner’s demonstration of the hydrogen maser. He discusses his postdoctoral research at the University of Washington where he worked with Hans Dehmelt on making accurate measurements of the electron g-factor, and the opportunities that led to his career at NIST in Boulder. He describes the excellent research environment and instrumentation that made precision measurements for clocks feasible and the important of Shor’s algorithm for his work. Wineland explains the difference of accuracy and precision as those words apply to atomic clocks, and the societal benefits of achievement improvements in this field both for land- and space-based applications. He describes the day he learned that he would receive the Nobel Prize, the collaboration he enjoyed with Serge Haroche, and his post-Nobel work in quantum information. Wineland describes his reasons for moving to the University of Oregon. At the end of the interview, Wineland assesses the current and future prospects of true quantum computing and the societal benefits that this advance could confer, and ongoing developments that can further improve atomic clocks. 

Interviewed by
Charles Weiner
Interview date
Location
Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington
Abstract

Early experiences in science at Whitman College, Washington, from 1920; friendships with fellow students and teachers. Graduate study at University of Oregon and Harvard University; difficulties funding education; study with Edward A. Milne at Oregon and John Van Vleck at Harvard. Work at National Bureau of Standards on piezoelectricity and oscillators; work at Bell Labs on thermionic emission and experimental basis of statistical mechanics; influence of Arnold Sommerfeld on his work on the copper oxide rectifier. World War II work with National Defense Research Council on the magnetic head of submarine detectors. Return to Bell Labs following World War II; research in solid state with group headed by William Shockley and Stanley O. Morgan; preliminary researches in semiconductor effects.

Interviewed by
Alan Holden and W. James King
Interview dates
June 1964
Location
Bell Telephone Laboratories
Abstract

Early experiences in science at Whitman College, Washington, from 1920; friendships with fellow students and teachers. Graduate study at University of Oregon and Harvard University; difficulties funding education; study with Edward A. Milne at Oregon and John Van Vleck at Harvard. Work at National Bureau of Standards on piezoelectricity and oscillators; work at Bell Labs on thermionic emission and experimental basis of statistical mechanics; influence of Arnold Sommerfeld on his work on the copper oxide rectifier. World War II work with National Defense Research Council on the magnetic head of submarine detectors. Return to Bell Labs following World War II; research in solid state with group headed by William Shockley and Stanley O. Morgan; preliminary researches in semiconductor effects.