What led you to Andover?
I came here in 1990. I was a graduate student at the time. I thought I was going to study theories about how life started on Earth, but I quickly discovered that I was not cut out for laboratory work. I found that most of the time I spent in the lab, I was staring out the window, looking at kids playing soccer, wishing I were playing soccer with them instead. But I also quickly discovered that I loved teaching because I was teaching undergraduates. So I looked for teaching jobs and landed here, and never really looked back.
What was the progression of your course or your career at Andover?
I started as a physics and chemistry teacher, and I also ended up starting an environmental science program here because we just didn’t have one, and I was really interested in it. And then, very early in my career, I got to co-chair a study for the [Natural Sciences Department] on our facilities’ needs. Before the Trustees would build us a new [science building], they wanted to know what our program would look like, [so] we got to envision the future of the science program. After that, I was the first Head of the [Natural Sciences Department]. We used to just have the three Department Chairs, but at that point, part of our vision was to bring things together.
Then I went on sabbatical for a year and bought a sailboat. Learned a lot about marine science then, you know, and sailed a lot. [I] went, fixed up the boat, and sailed it down to the Caribbean, and my fiancée at the time came with me for a lot of that and then [we] got married when I was on sabbatical. And then, I came back here and became Dean of Studies for seven years. And then I went back full-time into teaching. At some point, I took another sabbatical, which was way more tame because I had young kids… and then I have been teaching since and became [Chair in Physics] a few years ago. But along the way, also, [I did] a lot of summer work, which was really fun. I did the marine science program in the summer session called “Oceans.” We lived on board a schooner with six kids at a time, doing little marine biology experiments, which was fun. And then I also did this thing called the International Academic Partnership. I went to India, Pakistan, Kenya, Tanzania, and ran teacher workshops in the summers with partner schools that we had in those places, which was super fun for physics teachers. That was also really interesting, to see people who came from such different cultures and had such different life experiences for me, but we were all brought together by our interest in teaching young people about science. So yeah, I’ve got to do so many different things over the course of 36 years.
Why did you recommend “The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality” for Andover Summer Reading?
One of the most interesting things about physics, in particular, is its intersection with philosophy and religious studies. [It’s good] if you’re curious about sort of the big questions about the meaning of existence, the origins of the universe, why we’re here, those kinds of questions. You can approach them from lots of different perspectives. You can approach that from a purely spiritual point of view, you can try to approach it from a purely scientific point of view. You can ask questions that are maybe better answered through other human endeavors, like literature. You can tell origin stories, create literature around origin stories. So there are lots of different ways to think about big questions, and I’m really interested in how those overlap. That book gets at those questions in really profound ways.
What brought you into STEM and physics?
Just curiosity. I was always really interested in sort of how things worked and wondered about [them]. My mom was a science teacher; she was a biology teacher, and I was always asking her about how things worked. I was curious about things. So at a pretty young age, I knew I was interested in science. It was pretty clear that I kept coming back to more science than the humanities.
How did you end up teaching both chemistry and physics?
I studied a ton of physics [as an] undergraduate. It was a close call whether I was going to major in physics. I think I was one course short of a physics major in college. And then in graduate school, I really was studying, not really physics or chemistry or biology. It was like a mix of everything because I was interested in questions about the origins of life. And then when I got hired here, it was actually because they needed a physics teacher. So that’s how I started out. I love science in general. I definitely gravitate more towards [chemistry] and physics… at some point, it just got a lot to be doing both, so I just sort of happened to be doing more physics at the time. And then we needed a [Chair in Physics], so I ended up over here. But I taught a lot of chemistry here, too, over the years. Some years I’ve been here, I’ve only taught chemistry. In some years, I’ve taught both. It just sort of worked out that way because of the needs of the [Natural Sciences Department] at particular junctures.
What did you do at the Sea Education Association, and how is that different from physics?
The Sea Education Association is out of Woods Hole, Massachusetts. It was at the time run in partnership with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and they had a program in the summer for teachers who wanted to learn how to teach marine science. And so part of it, about 3 weeks of it, was in Woods Hole. We flew to Nova Scotia and then sailed on a research vessel from Nova Scotia back to Woods Hole, and learned how to do all parts of both the sailing aspects of it and the marine science, running the lab that was on the boat.
What is one memory you will never forget? Why?
I would have to say the birth of my children. Both of them, each of those moments, I’m going to cry thinking about it, because there’s nothing like seeing somebody come into the world. It’s really special. They are 14 and 17. So one of them’s here, and the other will be here next year.
You visit South Bristol, Maine, every summer. Why is this spot special to you?
When I was a kid, we moved to Maine for about five years. I lived about 20 miles away from South Bristol and had a lot of family [around]. All of my mom and her siblings grew up on Long Island, but they ended up migrating to Maine when they were adults. So I still have a ton of family up there. But I’m also just sort of attached to the coast of Maine. I find it really beautiful and peaceful, and a really great way to relax in the summer.
Do you have or plan on traveling anywhere else besides South Bristol?
I love traveling. I did a lot of it when I was younger, before I had kids. We haven’t done a ton of traveling as a family. We love to travel, but we tend to travel mostly around New England in the summer. We go to Vermont, we go to Maine, we go to Cape Cod, we do little things. It tends to be our summer routine. We go down to Brooklyn to see other relatives, too.
What sports have you coached or played?
I do a little recreational running group in the afternoons. I’ve done Ultimate Frisbee, recreational stuff like that. But the only two real sports I’ve coached are Soccer and [Track & Field]. I love teaching, and I think the core of the job for me has always been the classroom teaching… [However,] I like doing lots of different things. This is kind of a perfect job for people who like doing a lot of different things because you get to do a lot of different things every day.
