Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers

Stephen Thornton is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Virginia. He has published over 130 research articles in experimental nuclear physics and has done research at several accelerator facilities in the United States and Europe. He has directed research for 25 graduate students and has held two U.S. Senior Fulbright-Hays Fellowships and a Max-Planck Fellowship to do research at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany on two occasions. He was the founding Director of the University of Virginia Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics. He has published three college textbooks for physics: "Classical Dynamics," "Modern Physics, " and "Physics for Scientists and Engineers. He was Director of the Master of Arts in Physics Education program at the University of Virginia, which has graduated more than 150 high school physics teachers. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of several organizations including American Association of Physics Teachers, American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Science Teachers Association, Virginia Association of Science Teachers (past President), and the Virginia Math and Science Coalition. He was awarded the Pegram Award by the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society for “Excellence in Physics Education in the Southeast.” He has developed multiple courses for undergraduate students and high school physics teachers.

Andrew Rex has been Professor of Physics at the University of Puget Sound since 1982. He frequently teaches the Modern Physics course, so he has a deep sense of student and instructor challenges. He is the author of several textbooks, including "Modern Physics," "Essential College Physics," "Integrated Physics and Calculus," and "Finn's Thermal Physics, Third Edition." In addition to textbook writing, he studies foundations of the second law of thermodynamics, which has led to the publication of several papers and the widely acclaimed book, "Maxwell's Demon: Entropy, Information, Computing." He has also written the general-audience book "Commonly Asked Questions in Physics."

Carol Hood is an Associate Professor of Physics at California State University, San Bernardino, a primarily undergraduate Hispanic serving institution. In addition to teaching Modern Physics and other introductory and advanced physics courses, she has spent significant time in the past few years redesigning program curriculum and courses throughout the undergraduate physics and general education levels. Her research focuses on the growth of active galactic nuclei over cosmic time and faculty development in STEM pedagogy. Dr. Hood is the Co-Director of the southern portion of Cal-Bridge, a state-wide scholarship and mentoring program for California State University students designed to increase minority participation in physics and astronomy Ph.D. programs, in particular to the University of California.