![[photo]](./images/teaching.png)
Pretending to teach while a photo is taken.
Assistant Professor
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Experimental condensed-matter physics
My research focuses on electrical transport in novel magnetic heterostructures ("spin electronics"), superconductivity, and electron tunneling phenomena. I maintain a shared laboratory for electrical, magnetic, and optical characterization of novel materials and devices down to ultra-low temperatures (<350mK) and high magnetic fields (to 7T). You can see some of my recent publications here.
The last few semesters, I have been teaching introductory electricity, magnetism, and optics. I regularly blog information about this course, and have a lengthy set of lecture notes which might someday be a textbook. I also help team-teach graduate level courses in magnetic materials and magnetic recording. In the past I have taught introductory calculus-based mechanics; next semester (Fall 2008) I will teach an honors section of introductory (calculus-based) electricity, magnetism, and optics.
What about me? Originally from New Effington, SD, I did my undergraduate work at MIT, finishing with a bachelors in Materials Science (course 3) in 1998. I received my Ph.D. in Physics (cum laude) from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands in 2002 (supervisor: W.J.M. de Jonge). From 2002-2005 I was a post-doctoral researcher back at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory under Dr. J.S. Moodera. I joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy here at UA in Fall 2005.