Current Members

Current Members

Bruce C. Denardo

Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy

University of Mississippi

e-mail: denardo@olemiss.edu

I received my undergraduate education from the University of California at Berkeley, where I double-majored in physics and applied mathematics, and my graduate education from UCLA, where I earned a Ph.D. in physics in 1990. Before my appointment in 1993 as Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi, I was a postdoctoral fellow and then assistant research professor in the Physics Department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. I am a member of the Acoustical Society of America and the American Association of Physics Teachers.

In my the past, I was a dedicated student as well as an athlete and singer-songwriter. As a tenure-tracked professor, I devote nearly all of my time and energy to physics. This amounts to over 80 hours/week. To maintain some sanity, I regularly exercise and occasionally play guitar and sing. I also read the New York Times, listen to public radio, and watch network news, 60 Minutes, Poirot on PBS Mystery, and MAD TV. I enjoy artistic films, which are apparently now only made in foreign countries.

I am an enthusiastic and dedicated teacher who believes in a challenging and open-ended environment in the classroom. I perform a large number of physics demonstrations, and strive for discussions. Conceptual understanding is always emphasized. I also believe in continually experimenting with different teaching techniques. For example, I have found that handing out my previous tests as study guides offers students an excellent resource, and one that they are very motivated to use.

I head two research groups at the University of Mississippi: the Nonlinear Waves Group at the National Center for Physical Acoustics, and the Educational Physics Group in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Most of the research in the Nonlinear Waves Group is funded by the Office of Naval Research. My forefront research involves solitons in mechanical systems (acoustics, liquid surfaces, and lattices), sonoluminescence, nonlinear acoustic noise, and parametric excitation in acoustics. An overall goal of this research is to uncover and understand nonlinear wave behavior that is common to many systems. Experimental, analytical, and computational approaches are all employed in this process.

My educational research involves lecture demonstrations, teaching laboratory experiments, and pedagogical treatments. This work is published in the American Journal of Physics and the Physics Teacher. I strongly believe that undergraduate students should engage in research, and that educational physics offers an ideal area due to its relative simplicity and general usefulness. This is one of the reasons I founded the Educational Physics Group. I do not want students to make my mistake of becoming involved in research only after several years of graduate school.

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John (Jay) M. Earwood

Electrical Engineering - Undergraduate

e-mail: jearwood@olemiss.edu

I grew up in Jackson, Ms., where I went to high school at St. Joseph Catholic High. I was very active in the fine arts, winning numerous awards for both song and stage. I worked for a time at NewStage Theater in Jackson building sets and learning tricks of the trade. Later, after graduating from high school, I studied voice for a year at Loyola University New Orleans. Shortly after, I got married to a beautiful girl named Melissa. We have a son who will be three this summer and another child due in mid-May.

I began studying Electrical Engineering at Ole Miss in 1995. I currently work for the Educational Physics Research Group where I am engaged in several projects. One of these projects happens to be the web site you are now viewing.

My hobbies include playing guitar, singing, reading and studying Anglo-Irish politics (which is a never-ending source of entertainment). I enjoy playing American and Celtic folk music and a bit of rock-n-roll as well.

After graduation I plan to move back to Jackson so that my wife can finish nursing school. After that, I hope to go on to grad-school somewhere either in the northeast or in Europe. My foresight gets a little hazy after that point, but I would like to get a job doing research somewhere. Until then, I will just take life as it comes, and try to have as much fun as I still can, while I still can.

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Thomas Jamerson

e-mail: thomas@beauty1.phy.olemiss.edu

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Cedric McGee

e-mail: camcgee@olemiss.edu

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Michael McGuire

e-mail: mamcguir@olemiss.edu

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Cecille A. Pemberton

Student

e-mail: cpembert@olemiss.edu

I am currently an undergraduate physics student at the University of Mississippi. majoring in physics and mathematics. I went to primary and secondary school in my home country Dominica. I graduated from the Convent High School in 1990 and went on to the Clifton Dupigny Community College also in Dominica where I took courses in physics, math and chemistry. I graduated from there in 1992.

The following two years I spent teaching high school physics, math and general science. In the beginning of 1995 I worked as a customer service representative at the Royal Bank of Canada but then I left home in July of that year to go to the University of Mississippi where I have been since.

I am a member of Pi Mu Epsilon, the math honour society and am also of the American Association of Physics Teachers. I have worked on a few projects in the Educational Physics Research Group. One has been completed and the work has been published in the May 1997 issue of The Physics Teacher. I am continuing work on two others at this time.

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Vera Sazonova

e-mail: vsazonov@olemiss.edu

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Debbie Schofield

e-mail: dlsphy@olemiss.edu

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