Priscilla Laws

Last updated

Priscilla Watson Laws (January 18, 1940 - December 12, 2023) [1] was an American physics educator, known for her work in activity-based physics education. She was a research professor of physics at Dickinson College.

Contents

Education and career

Laws majored in physics, with a minor in mathematics, at Reed College, graduating in 1961. She did her graduate studies at Bryn Mawr College, earning a master's degree in experimental nuclear physics in 1963 and completing her Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics in 1966. [2]

She joined the Dickinson College faculty as an assistant professor of physics in 1965, and was tenured as an associate professor in 1970. She was promoted to full professor in 1979, and chaired the Department of Physics and Astronomy in 1982 and 1983. She retired as a regular-rank faculty member in 2002, becoming a research professor of physics at Dickinson. [2]

Research and books

Initially, in her research at Dickinson College, Laws focused on the health applications and safety of radiography and X-rays, publishing several books on this topic: [3]

In the mid-1980s, Laws shifted her focus to physics education. Her work in this area again includes several books in the Workshop Physics and RealTime Physics textbook suites, and the textbook Understanding Physics (with Karen Cummings, Edward F. Redish, Patrick J. Cooney, and Edwin Taylor, John Wiley & Sons, 2012). [3]

Recognition

In 1993, Laws shared the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in Education with Ronald K. Thornton, for their development of the Workshop Physics program. [4] In 2010, she and University of Oregon professor David Sokoloff won the APS Excellence in Physics Education Award, for their work with the Activity Based Physics Group, "for twenty-three years of national and international leadership in the design, testing, validation, and dissemination of research-based introductory physics curricula, computer tools and apparatus that engage students in active learning based on the observation and analysis of real phenomena". [3]

Laws was the 1996 winner of the Robert A. Millikan Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers. [5] She was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2003, after a nomination from the APS Forum on Education, "for her numerous contributions to physics education and for her development of data collecting computer tools and methods to use them efficiently". [6] She won the International Commission on Physics Education Medal in 2007. [7]

Personal life

While a student at Bryn Mawr, in 1965, she married fellow Bryn Mawr physics student Kenneth Lee Laws (1935–2021), who also became a physics professor at Dickinson College. They had two children. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Vermeule</span> American archaeologist

Emily Dickinson Townsend Vermeule was an American classical scholar and archaeologist. She was a professor of classical philology and archaeology at Harvard University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Quinn</span> Australian-American physicist

Helen Rhoda Arnold Quinn is an Australian-born particle physicist and educator who has made major contributions to both fields. Her contributions to theoretical physics include the Peccei–Quinn theory which implies a corresponding symmetry of nature and contributions to the search for a unified theory for the three types of particle interactions. As Chair of the Board on Science Education of the National Academy of Sciences, Quinn led the effort that produced A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas—the basis for the Next Generation Science Standards adopted by many states. Her honours include the Dirac Medal of the International Center for Theoretical Physics, the Oskar Klein Medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, appointment as an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia, the J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics from the American Physical Society, the Karl Taylor Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics from the American Institute of Physics, and the 2018 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Swank</span> American astronomer

Jean Hebb Swank is an astrophysicist who is best known for her studies of black holes and neutron stars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Laird (physicist)</span> Canadian physicist

Elizabeth Rebecca Laird was a Canadian physicist who chaired the physics department at Mount Holyoke College for nearly four decades. She was the first woman accepted by Sir J. J. Thomson to conduct research at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory. In her later life she studied electromagnetic radiation for military and medical applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geraldine L. Richmond</span> American scientist (born 1953)

Geraldine Lee Richmond is an American chemist and physical chemist who is serving as the Under Secretary of Energy for Science in the US Department of Energy. Richmond was confirmed to her DOE role by the United States Senate on November 5, 2021. Richmond is the Presidential Chair in Science and professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon (UO). She conducts fundamental research to understand the chemistry and physics of complex surfaces and interfaces. These understandings are most relevant to energy production, atmospheric chemistry and remediation of the environment. Throughout her career she has worked to increase the number and success of women scientists in the U.S. and in many developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America. Richmond has served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and she received the 2013 National Medal of Science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elaine Oran</span> American aerospace engineer, computer scientist, physicist

Elaine Surick Oran is an American physical scientist and is considered a world authority on numerical methods for large-scale simulation of physical systems. She has pioneered computational technology to solve complex reactive flow problems, unifying concepts from science, mathematics, engineering, and computer science in a new methodology. An incredibly diverse range of phenomena can be modeled and better understood using her techniques for numerical simulation of fluid flows, ranging from the tightly grouped movements of fish in Earth's oceans to the explosions of far-flung supernovae in space. Her work has contributed significantly to the advancement of the engineering profession.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiona A. Harrison</span> American astrophysicist

Fiona A. Harrison is the Kent and Joyce Kresa Leadership Chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy at Caltech, Harold A. Rosen Professor of Physics at Caltech and the Principal Investigator for NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission. She won the Hans A. Bethe Prize in 2020 for her work on NuSTAR.

Neal B. Abraham is an American physicist, in 2018 retired from his position as executive director at the Five College Consortium, a position he held beginning in 2009. He is a member of the board of directors of the Association for Collaborative Leadership (ACL). Prior to his work at the Five Colleges, he was executive vice president of DePauw University and prior to that, a Physics Professor and department chair at Bryn Mawr College. Abraham has been a leader in developing physics undergraduate research at Bryn Mawr, DePauw, and the Five Colleges. His research is on nonlinear dynamics, chaos, and lasers. He is an elected fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science and two major physics societies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Harding</span> American astrophysicist

Alice Kust Harding is an American astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.

Anna Christina Balazs is an American materials scientist and engineer. She currently is Distinguished Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and holds the John A. Swanson Chair at the Swanson School of Engineering.

Henriette D. Elvang is a Theoretical Particle Physicist and Professor at the University of Michigan. She works on quantum field theory and scattering processes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kerstin Nordstrom</span> American physicist

Kerstin N. Nordstrom is an American physicist who is the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics at Mount Holyoke College. Her research focuses on soft matter physics; her work has been featured in the LA Times and in the BBC News.

Janet Howell Clark was an American physiologist and biophysicist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Dewey</span> American physicist (1900–1976)

Jane Mary Dewey was an American physicist.

Nadiashda or Nadejda Galli-Shohat was a Russian physicist. Born Nadiashda Kokaoulina in Siberia, she graduated from the Women's University of Petrograd in 1903, joined the Bolshevik Party after the 1905 Russian Revolution, and took the name Galli upon marrying her first husband. She received her doctorate from Göttingen in 1914, worked at the Yekaterinburg Meteorological Observatory from 1915 to 1917, and from 1917 to 1922 was professor and chair of the physics department at Ural Federal University, after which she worked at the University of Petrograd's State Optical Institute. Together with her second husband, the mathematician James Alexander Shohat, she migrated to the United States in 1923. She was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1931. She taught physics at the University of Michigan, Mount Holyoke, Rockford College, Bryn Mawr, and the University of Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nora Mohler</span> American physicist

Nora May Mohler was an American physicist, elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1941.

Lucy Frear Fortson is an American astronomer known for her work on gamma-ray astronomy and Galaxy morphological classification and for her leadership of citizen science projects including the Galaxy Zoo and Zooniverse. She is a professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota.

Laura Beth Smilowitz is an American physicist known for her development of technology that can record x-ray movies of explosions at high frame rates, and for shooting high explosives with lasers in order to synchronize their explosions with their recordings. She is a researcher at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she heads the Weapons Chemistry team in the Physical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy group.

Lillian Christie McDermott was an American physicist. In the early 1970s, McDermott established the Physics Education Group (PEG) at the University of Washington to "improve the teaching and learning of physics from kindergarten all the way through graduate school." She was recognized for her many contributions to the field of physics education research with an election to the American Physical Society in 1990.

Michelle D. Shinn is an American laser scientist. She is program manager for industrial concepts in the Office of Nuclear Physics at the United States Department of Energy.

References

  1. Birth year from VIAF authority control record, retrieved 2021-10-21
  2. 1 2 Biographical sketch for Priscilla W. Laws (PDF), Dickinson College, April 2009, retrieved 2021-10-21
  3. 1 2 3 "2010 Excellence in Physics Education Award Recipient", APS Honors, American Physical Society, retrieved 2021-10-21
  4. "People News", Education Week, 3 November 1993, retrieved 2021-10-21
  5. Johnston, Karen L. (January 1997), "Priscilla W. Laws: Recipient of the Robert A. Millikan Medal", American Journal of Physics, American Association of Physics Teachers, 65 (1): 13–13, doi: 10.1119/1.18495
  6. "Fellows nominated in 2003 by the Forum on Education", APS Fellows archive, American Physical Society, retrieved 2021-10-21
  7. Jolly, Pratiha (November 2007), Citation for the Presentation of the ICPE Medal to Professor Priscilla Laws, International Commission on Physics Education, retrieved 2021-10-21 via Kansas State University
  8. "Kenneth Lee Laws", Obituaries, The Sentinel, 11 June 2021, retrieved 2021-10-21