Holbrow Will Lead AAPT in 2003

The American Association of Physics Teachers has elected Charles H. Holbrow, a nuclear physicist from Colgate University, vice president for 2001. Holbrow, who takes office this month, will become president-elect in 2002 and president in 2003, succeeding Chris Chiaverina, a physics teacher at New Trier Township High School in Winnetka, Illinois.

A challenge for the AAPT is “to deal effectively with the astonishing changes that applications of technology to teaching are bringing to education in general and to physics education in particular,” says Holbrow. “We also need to increase the amount of communication between AAPT and other science education groups with whom we share common concerns and interests.”

Holbrow earned his PhD in physics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1963 and also has a master’s degree in history from Columbia University. He continues to combine these interests: He is currently collaborating with diplomatic historian Andrew Rotter to teach a course at Colgate on the making of the atomic bomb. Holbrow has taught at Colgate for 33 years, where he has pushed for exposing students earlier to modern physics. For example, one project highlights the more unusual aspects of quantum mechanics through undergraduate laboratory experiments.

Also taking office at AAPT this month are Mary Beth Monroe, a mathematics and physics instructor at Southwest Texas Junior College, who will serve a two-year term as secretary, and Mary H. Fehrs, a professor of physics at Pacific University, who will serve a three-year term on AAPT’s executive board.