Peterson Is AAPT Vice President for 2003

Richard Peterson, physics professor at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, took office last month as vice president of the American Association of Physics Teachers. He succeeded Jim Nelson and will become president-elect in 2004 and president in 2005. Charles Holbrow also began his term as AAPT president (see Physics Today, January 2001, page 64 ).

Peterson earned a BS in mathematics and physics from the University of Wisconsin–River Falls in 1964 and attended Michigan State University, where he received an MS in 1966 and a PhD in 1969, both in physics. Peterson began his professional career at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1969, initially as a postdoctoral fellow under Franz Jahoda and later as a visiting staff member, a position he held for the next nine summers. Following his postdoc, Peterson joined the physics faculty at Western Illinois University in Macomb as an assistant professor and became an associate professor in 1974. Peterson went on to Bethel College in 1980, where he served as chair of the physics department until 1996.

Also a member of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America, Peterson is an active participant in physics education and especially enjoys the challenge of research and of teaching applied optics and acoustics to undergraduate students. In 1998, his efforts were rewarded when he received the APS Prize for Research at an Undergraduate Institution. Peterson’s appreciation of AAPT’s mission statement—to enhance the understanding and appreciation of physics through teaching— is obvious. “[It] is surely the goal of my professional life,” he said, “and I very much look forward to the challenges of the next few years.”

In other AAPT election results, Mary Beth Monroe (Southwest Texas Junior College in Uvalde, Texas) was reelected to a two-year term as secretary and Chuck Stone (North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro) was chosen for a three-year term as the two-year college member-at-large on the AAPT executive board.