Physics

The 2025 Distinguished Lecture Series in Physics
September 11-12, 2025

The UW-La Crosse Distinguished Lecture Series in Physics (DLS) is co-sponsored by the UW-La Crosse Foundation, the Department of Physics, and the College of Science and Health.  The purpose of the series is to bring to La Crosse each year a world-renowned physicist whose significant accomplishments can inspire and enrich the lives and careers of students, faculty, and the community in general.  

Dates: 
Thursday, September 11 and Friday, September 12, 2025
Speaker: 
Carl Wieman, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Physics

Carl Wieman2001 Nobel Laureate “for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates”
Emeritus Professor of Physics and Education, Stanford University

Carl Wieman is an Emeritus Professor of Physics and Education at Stanford University. He has been widely recognized for experimental research in both atomic physics (Nobel Prize 2001 and other awards) and university science and engineering education (Carnegie University Professor of the Year 2004, Yidan International Prize for Education Research 2020). Wieman directed the Science Education Initiatives at the Universities of Colorado and British Columbia which produced large scale change in the teaching of science.  He also served as Associate Director for Science in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2010 to 2012.  He founded PhET, which provides interactive simulations that are used nearly a million times a day to learn science, and he has written a book “Improving how universities teach science.” He is studying problem solving expertise in science and engineering, as well as general ways to improve university student learning in science and engineering, including the use of generative AI.

Thursday, September 11
5:00 p.m.
Public Lecture
Location:  Centennial Hall - Skogen Auditorium A, Room 1400

Topic: Teaching & Learning Science and Engineering in the 21st Century

Guided by experimental tests of theory and practice, science and engineering have advanced rapidly in the past 500 years. Education in these subjects, however, guided primarily by tradition and dogma, has remained largely medieval. Recent research on how people learn, combined with careful experiments in university classrooms, is now revealing much more effective ways to teach and evaluate learning than is currently used in most classes. Dr. Wieman will discuss these results, what they tell us about principles of learning, and their effective implementation in science courses. This research is setting the stage for a new approach to teaching that can provide the relevant and effective science education for all students that is needed for the 21st century.

Friday, September 12
3:20 p.m.
Physics Seminar (open to the public)
Location:  Centennial Hall - Skogen Auditorium A, Room 1400

Topic: Teaching Students to Think Like Skilled Scientists

The primary goal of university education in science and engineering is to have students develop expertise, the ability to think like skilled scientists and engineers.  Dr. Wieman will discuss how research on both the development of expertise and the nature of technical expertise can provide guidance for more effective teaching, and he will provide examples of results when these ideas have been implemented in courses, particularly in physics.  This will also touch on the role AI can and cannot play in such an education.