Wieman to join OSTP

Physicist and Nobel prize winner Carl Wieman , has been nominated as Associate Director for Science, Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Wieman currently divides his time between the University of British Columbia and the University of Colorado.

A former Stanford graduate, Wieman won the 2001 Nobel Prize in physics for his research on as “Bose-Einstein condensation”.

His main interest in the last few years has been on improving undergraduate science education and it is in this role he will work at OSTP.

From 1984 through 2006, he was a distinguished professor of physics and presidential teaching scholar at the University of Colorado.

While at the University of Colorado, he was a Fellow of JILA (a joint federal-university institute for interdisciplinary research in the physical sciences) and he served as the Chair of JILA from 1993-95.

Wieman was the founding Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Science Education. He has received numerous awards, including the National Science Foundation’s Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award (2001), the Carnegie Foundation’s US University Professor of the Year Award (2004), and the American Association of Physics Teachers’ Oersted Medal (2007) for his work on science education.