About the authors

Gary Gladding, Professor of Physics, University of Illinois

Professor Gary Gladding received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1971 and joined the Department of Physics at Illinois in 1973. He has been involved in experiments using the silicon vertex detector (CLEO II) at the Wilson Synchrotron Laboratory at Cornell University to study charmed meson decays, and he has made numerous contributions to high energy experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

Since 1996, Professor Gladding has led the faculty group responsible for therevolutionizing the introductory physics curriculum at Illinois—an effort that improved physics instruction for more than 25,000 undergraduates. Shifting his focus to physics education research (PER) over the last ten years, Professor Gladdening was at the forefront of developing the Physics 100 course for at-risk students. In 1999, he was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society for his contributions to the improvement of large enrollment introductory physics courses. He also played a key role in the development of i›clicker™ classroom response system.

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Mats Selen, Professor of Physics, University of Illinois

Professor Mats Selen earned a B.S. and M.S.c. in physics from the University of Guelph (1982, 1983). He earned his M.A. (1985) and Ph.D. (1989) in physics at Princeton University. He was a research associate at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR) at Cornell University from 1989-1993. In 1993, he joined the Department of Physics at Illinois and was appointed full professor in 2001. Professor Selen has made significant contributions in several research areas, including the study of charmed meson production and decay, and the design and construction of high-speed electronics.

Dr. Selen has been a prime mover behind the revision of the calculus-based introductory physics. He was the first lecturer in the new sequence and personally developed Physics 123 — a hands-on course for elementary education students. He also started the Physics Van, an award-winning program that introduces grade school children to the fun of physics, and is a regular on local morning television as "The Whys Guy." Professor Selen was instrumental in developing i›clicker™ classroom response system.

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Timothy Stelzer, Research Associate Professor of Physics, University of Illinois

Professor Timothy Stelzer earned his B.S. in physics from St. John's University (1988) and his Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison (1993). His particle physics research has focused on physics at hadron colliders such as the Tevatron at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the LHC in Geneva Switzerland.

Professor Stelzer joined the University of Illinois physics department in 1995 and is a founding member of the university's Physics Education Research group. His education research using technology to improve learning. A regular on the University's university's "Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked Excellent by Their Students, Dr. Stelzer received the University of Illinois Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Award in 2009, and in 2011, was awarded the Arnold Nordsieck Award for "the development and dissemination of innovative materials and techniques that have transformed introductory physics teaching." Dr. Stelzer was instrumental in developing i›clicker™ classroom response system.