NC State Physics Education Research Group

Current Graduate Students

Evan Richards
email: etrichar at ncsu dot edu

    Evan was born in Dallas, TX and graduated in 1999 with a BS in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University, where his studies emphasized microwave design. In 2000, he earned a MS (also in Electrical Engineering) from Georgia Institute of Technology. Evan then worked at TriQuint Semiconductor as a Product Engineer, starting in 2001. Soon after, he began classes at the University of Texas at Dallas to earn his Master's Degree in Physics in Spring of 2004. He moved to North Carolina and began work with PER in the Fall of that same year.
    Evan is interested in worked examples and is currently working on a project to implement a subgoal learning model to worked examples in Introductory Physics.
  His end goal is to teach physics and perhaps continue PER research at a research university.
   Evan has experience working as a TA and instructor of record in the SCALE-UP classroom, and he has been a TA for Matter and Interactions mechanics labs. He also ran an electronics lab at UTD.

Jon Gaffney
email: jdgaffne at ncsu dot edu
webpage: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jdgaffne
    Jon was born near Pittsburgh, PA and graduated in 2001 with a BS in Physics and Mathematics from Bethany College in Bethany, West Virginia with a minor in Philosophy. In 2002, he began attending the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned his MS in Physics. After deciding that he wanted to do research in Physics education, Jon spent two years earning experience as an instructor at Pitt and Duquesne. He then moved to North Carolina and joined the NC State PER group in Fall 2006.
    Jon is interested in deduction and how students learn to use deduction tools in a physics setting.
   His end goal is to teach physics classes at a small college or university.
   Jon has experience working as a TA in the SCALE-UP classroom and will be a SCALE-UP instructor in Spring 2008.

 Mary Bridget Kustusch
 email: mbkustus at ncsu dot edu
 webpage: Coming Soon

    Mary Bridget was born in Chicago, IL and graduated in 2004 with a BS in Physics from North Park University in Chicago with minors in Math and Biblical Studies. She spent two summers in REU programs, the latter of which, at the University of Illinos at Urbana-Champagne, introduced her to PER. During the academic year 2004-2005, Mary Bridget gained teaching experience as an adjunct faculty member at North Park University. She then decided to pursue a career in Physics Education Research, moved to North Carolina, and joined the NC State PER group in Spring 2006.
    Mary Bridget's interests include facilitating connections between knowledge representations in physics. She is also interested in effective technology use.
    Her end goal is to teach physics classes at a small 4-year college.
   Mary Bridget has experience working as a TA in the SCALE-UP classroom and as a TA in Matter and Interactions labs.

 Shawn Weatherford
 email: saweathe at ncsu dot edu
 webpage: http://web.mac.com/physics_god

    Shawn was born near Norfolk, VA and graduated in 2001 with a BA in Physics and Secondary Science Education from Elon College in Elon, North Carolina. Shawn was a North Carolina Teaching Fellow during his studies; for the next four years after graduation he taught in Williams High School in Burlington, NC as a physics teacher. Shawn began graduate work in Fall, 2005.
    His experiences in the high school led to his research interests: how can we better prepare science teachers for service to the broad population? Since science teachers often teach as they are taught, he hopes to prepare them through actively modeling proper instruction.
   Shawn has experience working as a TA in the Matter and Interactions laboratory sections.

 Brandon Lunk
 email: brlunk at ncsu dot edu  
webpage: Coming Soon

Brandon was born near Watertown, New York and graduated in 2004 with a BS in Physics from UNC Chapel Hill, with a minor in mathematics.  While there, Brandon discovered a passion for teaching and gained experience updating the introductory physics labs and working as a supplementary instructor. After spending a year taking post baccalaureate classes at NCSU while pursuing other endeavors, Brandon discovered PERD and began graduate studies in the fall of 2006. Brandon has experience working as a TA in the conceptual physics lab.

 Jeff Polak
 email: jmpolak2 at ncsu dot edu  
webpage: Coming Soon

Jeff was born in Greenfield, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee and graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater in 2006 with a BS in Physics, with a minor in mathematics.  Jeff participated in undergraduate research programs at the University of Illinois - Urbana/Champaign and NC State, both in Physics Education Research. He has been the TA for Matter and Interactions Labs. He also drives the van to most PERD functions and is really good at ball-in-a-cup.

 Kevin Wedderburn
 email: kmwedder at ncsu dot edu  
webpage: Coming Soon

Kevin Wedderburn was born in Jamaica, West Indies and graduated in 2002 with a BS in Engineering Physics from Morgan State University. In 2005 he earned a MS in Physics from North Carolina A & T State University in Greensboro. While at A & T Kevin gained some experience in doing research in computational quantum chemistry. In addition as a TA he taught undergraduate physics labs and was forever engaged in student learning. In 2005 Kevin was accepted in the PhD Physics program at North Carolina State University and he joined the Astrophysics group. During the summer of 2007 Kevin joined the PER group to do research in Physics Education. Kevin is interested in problem solving research and hopes to improve current techniques used to solve undergraduate physics problems.