Biography:Barbara Whitten
Barbara Lu Whitten (also published as Barbara Lu Whitten Wolfe) is a retired American physics educator and professor emerita of physics at Colorado College.[1] She is known for encouraging women in physics, for studying the factors that lead to the success of women in physics, and for promoting inclusive teaching strategies in physics; she has also worked in computational environmental physics.[2]
Education and career
Whitten "fell madly in love" with physics at age 16,[3] and graduated from Carleton College in 1968.[1] She received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Rochester in 1977,[3] with the dissertation On Mechanical Quantum Measuring Processes, supervised by Gérard G. Emch.[4] Her doctoral research applied algebraic statistical mechanics to computational atomic physics,[3][1] a combination of topics she continued to study for many years.[3]
After teaching at Miami University and working as a researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,[2] she joined the Physics Department at Colorado College as the first woman in its faculty. She retired in 2017.[1]
Recognition
Whitten is the 2018 recipient of the Oersted Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Celebrating Physics and Professor Barbara Whitten at Physics Homecoming, Colorado College, May 10, 2017, https://sites.coloradocollege.edu/atb/2017/05/10/celebrating-physics-and-professor-barbara-whitten-at-physics-homecoming/, retrieved 2024-12-06
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Barbara L. Whitten to Receive AAPT 2018 Oersted Medal, American Association of Physics Teachers, October 3, 2017, https://aapt.org/aboutaapt/Barbara-Whitten-to-Receive-AAPT-2018-Oersted-Medal.cfm, retrieved 2024-12-06
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Valich, Lindsey (Spring 2018), "Making physics less alpha: Barbara Whitten '77 (PhD) has devoted her career to the study of physics— and how to attract and retain women in the discipline", Rochester Review (University of Rochester), https://www.rochester.edu/adv/alumni-news-media/2019/05/21/making-physics-less-alpha/, retrieved 2024-12-06
- ↑ Barbara Whitten at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
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