My original plan, as I started at Beloit College , was to jump into a 3-2 Engineering program, but as I went through the physics program, I realized that was the place for me. I enjoyed the content, the curiosity about the fundamental operations of the universe.
"Something deeply hidden had to be behind things." A. Einstein
The physics department also gave me the opportunity to share this curiosity with other students through one-on-one tutoring. What they say is true - you really learn a subject when you engage in teaching it! I also developed a brief philosophy of physics pedagogy:
To learn physics, you have to do physics.
One of the differences between physics and math is that in math, you can be absolutely right. (Do I have that right?) In physics, you can be successful if your theories are verified. That is, I believe that physical ideas are relatively right -- that is, relative to experimental verification. The theories describe, and therefore serve, physical phenomena.
I graduated with a major in physics, as well as a major in music (history, theory, voice). My senior research, accordingly, began my trek into acoustics in an experiment to measure the speed of sound in various gases. I was fortunate to participate in two summer research projects after my junior and senior years, an REU opportunity at Oak Ridge National Lab with the University of Tennessee , and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute ( Summer Student Fellowship ). The project at Oak Ridge had me assembling data on the moments of inertia to try to understand the behavior of heavy nuclei. It was in the University library that I read my first article in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, all about a study of hearing problems in violinist's left ears! That article was the birth of a career, as much as anything else. At Woods Hole, having an expressed interest in work in acoustics, I worked on a project modeling the scattered sound field off an object buried under the sea floor in shallow water. I left with a career plan: to teach physics to curious undergraduates and pursue research in musical acoustics.
I was attracted to Brigham Young University for graduate school because they have maintained a strong acoustics program within their Department of Physics and Astronomy . I wanted a Ph. D. in physics so that I could teach physics and have the autonomy to follow my own research interests. BYU offered one of the somewhat rare opportunities to work in musical acoustics within a physics department.
My course work consisted of the core physics classes, a major concentration in acoustics, and a minor comprised of mechanical engineering graduate courses. Through the ME classes, I picked up finite element techniques, fluid mechanics, and some vibration theory. I pulled all of it together in a dissertation project to model the lip reed of a trombone player. More about this ongoing work can be found in my Research Portfolio.
Now at Kettering University, I am doing exactly what I love to do: I'm teaching physics to undergraduates (both large introductory classes and upper-level courses for majors), and I'm working on research in acoustics (whenever I can squeeze it in).