Job Info
Employer:
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville - U of A
Position Type:
Education
Research
Management
Public Service
Job skills:
Complex problem solving
Synthesizing information
Mathematical skills
Knowledge of physics principles
Data analysis
Communication
Team work
Gay Stewart's Job:
Gay Stewart is possibly one of the most influential Physics educators working today. In addition to developing highly successful and innovative ways of teaching Physics to students in her University Physics courses at the University of Arkansas, Gay plays an important role in several NSF funded programs which endeavor to generate and support highly-trained high school Physics teachers and college teaching assistants, who are familiar with and competent in inquiry-based teaching methods.
My Previous Jobs:
Gay has served for many years as a member (one of them as chair) of the APS Forum on Education (FeD), and serves on the APS Council. She also is a site director of the PhysTEC project, and Principal Investigator on the College Ready Math and Physics Partnership.
Career Facts
Employer Type:
School/Academia
Current Location:
Fayetteville, AR 72701
Physics Degree:
Doctorate
Educational Information
PhD - Physics, University of Illinois
Biography:
Gay's Ph.D. dissertation was in the area of high energy physics. While a graduate student, she developed a strong interest in physics education reform. When she came to the University of Arkansas, Gay began her work on Physics Education Research--a field of Physics which scientifically examines the effectiveness of Physics instruction methods--by engineering her own introductory Physics courses at the University of Arkansas. In this process she improved the quality of Physics education for a number of her students, some of whom have written back to her years later to thank her for her efforts, even while pursuing careers in completely different fields.
Since then she has been involved in many initiatives to help improve high school Physics teacher preparation, such as PhysTEC and the College Ready Math and Physics Partnership. She has also been highly involved in efforts to revise introductory Physics courses at universities to be more inquiry-based, and to train teaching assistants to teach these revised courses.
