Selective Investment 1998 Award Recipients

Physics as a discipline is fundamental, connective, and broad. The Department of Physics has played a catalytic role in building relationships with other departments at Ohio State, particularly in the basic and applied sciences, including engineering. These university-wide connections have come about not only from the broad nature of the field, but also from the leadership of the department's faculty, the national impact of its research programs, and the attention that the department has paid to its university responsibilities.

The department has nurtured a sense of community in which undergraduates, graduates, and faculty contribute cooperatively in the learning and research processes. This sense of cooperation has been achieved with a planning and management system sensitive to relationships among academic choices and their financial implications, with a shared focus on milestones and results, and with an absolute commitment to raise the quality of the department and the institution.

Approximately 9,000 students annually-including all engineers and pre-med students, as well as thousands of students from the Colleges of Arts and Sciences-take a physics course here, with about one-third of all Ohio State graduates taking physics. And, they are richer for it because these courses are informed by the latest developments in the field and taught by experts.

The department had the largest rise in the most recent National Research Council (NRC) rankings for quality of program and for faculty quality of any physics department in the country and of any other department at Ohio State. Exceptional faculty appointments, notably Nobel Laureate Kenneth Wilson, as well as many other senior and junior appointments have had a national impact. The department has been spectacularly successful in attracting the best young faculty, as measured by the number of national competitive awards received such as the Presidential Young Investigator, the National Young Investigator, and the Outstanding Junior Investigator.

Substantial future benefits both to the department and to the university by these promising young people can only be ensured, however, if they develop to expectations. To address this important opportunity and challenge, the department has a strong tradition of innovative faculty development. As an example, the Associate Professor Development Program targets a significant fraction of the department's discretionary resources toward faculty members in their crucial first years of tenure and holds them accountable for their plans to transform themselves into the kind of faculty who are promoted to Professor at the best institutions.

To provide the basis for the Department Development and Faculty Hiring Plan, the department carefully surveyed the characteristics of the country's top physics departments. A remarkable consistency for many important measurables emerged, and these measures will be used to track progress in achieving a National Research Council rank of 17th in the country by 2005 and of 15th by 2010.

The Department of Physics has played a catalytic role in building interdisciplinary relationships with other departments around campus. For example, the department played a pivotal role in establishing and developing the Center for Materials Research, impacting the Department of Chemistry, as well as several departments in the College of Engineering. In addition, the department has established a leading astrophysics program, with a strong and vital connection with related researchers in the Department of Astronomy. The department also has long been a vital partner with the chemistry department in the university's Chemical Physics Program; and it has played a leadership role in the development of the new Spectroscopy Institute, along with faculty members from the chemistry and engineering departments.