RICHARDSON, Texas (March 23, 2005) – Dr. Russell A. Hulse, a Nobel Prize winner and a visiting professor at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), will make the case for community-based science education at a talk on Monday evening, April 11, at UTD.
Hulse’s presentation, “Science, From Nobel to Neighborhoods,” will be the fifth and final talk in the UTD Center for Science Education Research’s 2004-2005 Seminar Series for Life-Long Learners. The series, which featured talks by members of the university’s Science/Mathematics Education faculty on subjects in the fields of science and math, is aimed at classroom teachers and other educators, young adults, parents and grandparents of students and others.
Nobel Laureate Dr. Russell Hulse
“My career in science began as a youngster who was captivated by how science opened his eyes to the fascinating world around him,” Hulse explained. “That fascination eventually led to an exciting scientific adventure as a graduate student and a discovery for which I was awarded a Nobel Prize. I will tell the story of that discovery, and how the experience of receiving the Nobel led me to a new focus on bringing the excitement and adventure of science to a new generation of kids and adults through community-based science education.”
The discovery to which Hulse refers was the detection of the first binary pulsar – a twin star system that provides a rare natural laboratory in which to test Albert Einstein’s prediction that moving objects emit gravitational waves, as well as other aspects of his general theory of relativity. The discovery was made in 1974 by Hulse, then a 23-year-old graduate student, and his thesis adviser, Dr. Joseph Taylor Jr., utilizing the 1,000-foot radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. The pair shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1993.
The discovery of the binary pulsar has been ranked by many as among the most significant scientific breakthroughs in the 20 th Century, with implications for the fields of astrophysics and gravitational physics.
Hulse joined UTD in January 2004, when he became a visiting professor of physics and of science and mathematics education. During his appointment at UTD, Hulse has retained his affiliation with Princeton University, where he is a principal research physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
In recent years, Hulse has become deeply interested in the state of science and math education in the nation’s primary and secondary schools and how best to improve and expand it both within and outside of the classroom.
His presentation on April 11, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 6 p.m. in the UTD Conference Center, Room 1.112. For additional information, please call 972-883-2496 or visit the web site http://www.utdallas.edu/~rnix/quality/#seminar.
About UTD
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor®, enrolls more than 14,000 students. The school’s freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UTD, please visit the university’s web site at www.utdallas.edu.