Faculty often have a lot to complain about when it comes to course evaluations. A significant body of literature suggests that course evaluations tell us little, as instructors, about the actual effect a course has had in achieving its goal (e.g. imparting a subject to a group of students). However, […]
What an incredible week. Not only was the weather a strange cycle of “uncomfortably hot” and “beautifully cool”, but the sheer pace of work this week was blinding. There was time to relax a little, too, as when the weekend came I had dinner with an SMU alumna and […]
This was a glorious week at CERN. Being away from the United States for a little while, in place that is both host to the complications of international cooperation and a reminder of how things can actually be when people of different nations cooperate well, has been an out-of-body experience […]
I’ve decided to use my blog to reflect on my summer research activities as they unfold. I find such reflection not only useful for thinking about what is accomplished and what is not, but also to communicate to an audience some of the aspects of the research life of a […]
The U.S. has been without a “science adviser” (technically speaking, a Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP) since the inauguration of the current president. Based on existing records, this is the longest that the U.S. has ever gone without this position being filled (492 days). […]
Pop on over to Goodreads’s Science Book Club, where “Reality in the Shadows (or) What the Heck’s the Higgs?” is the book of the month for discussion in the forum! Frank Blitzer, Jim Gates, and I are available to chat about the book, about the science behind the book, and […]
I’ve run silent for months. Why? I had the time and energy for only a finite number of things, and none of them were writing. This semester hit like a freight train. In addition to trying to maintain something resembling a home life, there was a fragmented faculty life with […]
By the end of 2016, I was running 10 miles at my longest stretch. Then I injured my hamstring. Then 2017 came. I was on sabbatical, which sounds like “academic vacation” but isn’t. My exercise schedule was disrupted. My teaching schedule in the fall of 2017 was a mess that […]
Bombogenesis. Noreaster. Bomb cyclone. Polar vortex. These are none of the words you can use to describe the first day of our return trip to Texas. After a wonderful 5 days of play and rest wtlith family in northern Wisconsin, Jodi and I loaded up the car with bags and […]
This is the second and last day of our trip north to Wisconsin. As we have continued north into the cold Arctic air parked over the middle and Northeast of the United States, the temperature had only declined even as the day grows later and the sun higher in the […]
Jodi and I are on our annual road trip to Wisconsin. It has a new element this year: the cats went with us. We had a hard time finding a consistent cat sitter over the break, so we decided to take advantage of our cats’ youth and hit the road […]
When I joined the existing co-authors of “Reality in the Shadows” to contribute to the book, I hesitated. It had nothing to do with them. Jim Gates is renowned in my field for his intellectual prowess, considered a founder of key ideas in the theory of supersymmetry. Frank Blitzer is […]