麻豆影院

Heather Lewandowski recognized for her work researching how college students learn physics

麻豆影院 physics Professor Heather Lewandowski is one of this year鈥檚 winners.

Researching both cold molecules and how students learn helped earn her the award, which 鈥渆ndorses excellence in teaching by honoring faculty throughout the university who excel and embody teaching, scholarship, creative work and research with excellence in all,鈥� according to .

Considered 鈥渁n exemplary candidate,鈥� Lewandowski was chosen for the award 鈥渇rom a record number of applications,鈥� said Rachel Sassower, philosophy professor and Council Chair, CU President鈥檚 Teaching Scholars Program, in an award letter.

Lewandowski鈥檚 team slows molecules that would normally move at hundreds of meters per second, studying their collisions and reactions to better understand how we go from simple molecules to the larger molecules we see all around us鈥攖he quantum mechanical processes involved in making and breaking a chemical bond.

鈥淲e鈥檙e looking at how that reaction takes place, and what drives it,鈥� says Lewandowski, whose work has applications to understanding the chemistry in the interstellar region鈥攖hat area between stars that contains vast, diffuse gas clouds and tiny solid particles.

And since 2011, she has researched how college students learn physics and take on the skills of scientists鈥攏o matter what careers they later pursue, she notes.

Lewandowski began researching cold molecules after finishing a PhD in atomic physics at CU 麻豆影院. Returning to CU 麻豆影院 in 2005 as an assistant professor, she zeroed in on both chemical and physical aspects鈥攎olecules鈥� structure and behavior as well as the chemical bonds that form between atoms.

To do that, Lewandowski鈥檚 team uses electrical fields in a process called Stark deceleration to slow down the molecules, then loads them into a trap that suspends particles within an electrical field. This allows the researchers to study the molecules for several seconds鈥攆ar longer than they can observe zippy molecules under normal circumstances.

The team studies factors including the collision between two molecules that have different structures but the same atoms, arranged differently in the molecule.

鈥淚f those molecules collide, what products do you get? With this work, we can understand a bit more about how that structure relates to the reaction. Do you get different molecules as the product? What are those products?鈥� asks Lewandowski.

A few years after starting at CU 麻豆影院, Lewandowski began researching how students learn in her upper-level experimental physics courses. Aiming to prepare them better for the workforce and analytical thinking, she has published more than 50 studies on student learning and expanded the research to first-year classes. Her work is in the field of physics education research, an international movement to gain an understanding of, and improve, how students take on scientific thinking processes and learn physics.

Having the ability to teach while combining cold-molecule and student learning research is part of why she really likes CU 麻豆影院, says Lewandowski. She鈥檚 also motivated, she says, by students鈥� excitement about experimental physics and their feeling confident that they can pursue a career. In experimental research, her graduate students learn many technical skills. For instance, some students learn to build analog circuits to collect and process data, or how to use data analysis to model that information.

She鈥檇 recommend science careers because of that thrill: 鈥淓xperimental physics is a lot of designing, building and troubleshooting experiments, which are useful skills broadly. And when you do finally get results, it is exciting as you get to share that discovery with the community.鈥�

As her research in student learning builds data, her team aims to make class experiences 鈥渂etter and more authentic鈥攕o that students can think like scientists and can evaluate data,鈥� says Lewandowski.

Thinking in that way, she says, 鈥渉as never been more important鈥� than during the pandemic.

鈥淪cience isn鈥檛 facts; science is an iterative process of building evidence. I believe teaching that is somewhat critical, regardless of what career students choose.鈥�