Inspiring future scientists
Simmons receives 2002 Scholar/ Teacher Award

By Hope Green (B.U. Bridge, September 13, 2001)

It may be the 21st century, but when Elizabeth Simmons visits high schools to talk about science careers she is disturbed by the response from female students.

Elizabeth Simmons (right) works with Massachusetts high school students on an
experiment in electromagnetism as part of Pathways, a program Simmons established
to encourage young women to study science. Here they use a diffraction grating, a
tool that separates colors in light, to examine the emission spectrum of fluorescing
atoms in a light bulb. Photo by Vernon Doucette
 

"The girls will say, 'My boyfriend doesn't want me to be smarter than he is,' an attitude we thought went out decades ago, but it's still there," says Simmons, a CAS associate professor of physics. "Also, a lot of them aren't aware of the career possibilities. They don't know that with a science degree they can work for a high-tech company, where their technical expertise will help them get a management position. I think it's really important we educate girls about that so they don't limit themselves."

Eight years ago Simmons founded Pathways, a program that teaches young women about career opportunities in math, science, and engineering. Nearly 400 young women from Massachusetts high schools annually participate in the two-day Pathways conference at BU, where professional researchers describe their work to the students in lectures and poster sessions.

Year-round, the program offers a speakers bureau as well as a Web site with Internet links to scientific organizations for women.

Pathways is just one of the accomplishments that has earned Simmons the 2002 University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award, presented by President Jon Westling during BU's new faculty orientation on Thursday, September 13.

Lawrence Sulak, a CAS professor and chairman of the physics department, calls Simmons "a remarkable teacher and researcher."

"She inspires students, from freshman nonmajors who might not initially love physics to advanced graduate students," he says. "She brings hundreds of high school girls, potential scientists and engineers, to Boston University each year for encouragement from women practitioners in the Boston industrial and academic communities. And she is internationally known for her search for the unified theories of all the particles and forces of nature."

A New Jersey native, Simmons had enviable opportunities as a math and science student. The summer before her senior year, she traveled to California for a special physics and astronomy program, where she learned to calculate the orbit of an asteroid. Later she received tutoring in mathematics at Bell Laboratories, where distinguished physicist Walter Brown (no relation to the Boston Celtics founder, for whom BU's hockey arena is named) became her research mentor.

Simmons went on to earn three degrees in physics from Harvard and a master's in philosophy in condensed matter theory from Cambridge University. She joined BU's physics department in 1993, and after attending a workshop for new faculty she tried out innovative teaching methods in her classroom. "I came back and began talking to my colleagues, and they tried these new methods out and started going off in different directions," she says. "The department has really blossomed in the past five years in terms of the variety of teaching techniques with which we've all been experimenting. It's been very exciting to be part of that."

One method that has proved effective is peer instruction. Instead of a standard lecture format, the professor informally polls the students at intervals during the session to see how many of them comprehend what is being taught. When a multiple-choice question is flashed on the screen, the students hold up numbered cards corresponding to their answers.

"They can't see what their neighbors are answering, so they don't worry what their friends will think," Simmons explains. "If it's a tough question and they're not quite getting it, I'll give them a hint and ask them to talk with each other about it. As the term goes on and they're a little bit more comfortable in the class, I'll get the students to volunteer to tell how they got their answers."

Simmons has also established a system of team teaching, a relatively uncommon arrangement in physics, whereby pairs of professors take turns on lecture writing and classroom instruction. "It lets us do a better job of preparing our lectures," she explains.

In her research, Simmons wants to discover the origins of mass by focusing on quarks, the smallest subatomic particles in the universe. Her papers have been published in The Physical Review and Nuclear Physics. She appreciates the collegiality at CAS between particle theorists such as herself and the particle experiment group. "There has been a lot of talk back and forth," she says. "I have been working on papers with the experimentalists, and it's nice because some institutions specialize in one area more than the other and don't encourage that kind of dialogue."

BU's physics department is one of the few in the country to have four or more women faculty members. Sulak notes that in 2001, BU graduated more women physics majors than men. But Simmons would like to see the numbers of women scientists continue to increase nationally. She hopes to expand Pathways to include more school visits and a summer program, perhaps in computer science.

Another of Simmons' goals is to give her field better public relations. In July she ran an educational outreach program at the Snowmass Summer Study on the Future of Particle Physics, a three-week international forum for high-energy physicists that was held in Snowmass, Colo. Simmons recruited 100 of the scientists as volunteers for the education program, which featured workshops for students and teachers and a giant two-day science fair.

"Outreach is tremendously important," Simmons says. "Many people never took physics in school -- three-quarters of the population at least. If we expect the government to provide funding for our research, then people have to understand why it's important. So it's up to us to make it accessible, to invite the public to come and see what we do."

The University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award, established by the United Methodist Church and conferred at colleges and universities historically affiliated with it, recognizes outstanding faculty members for their dedication and contributions to the learning arts and to the institution.

Although BU is nonsectarian, it traces its origins to the Newbury Biblical Institute, the first Methodist seminary in the United States, which was founded in Newbury, Vt., in 1839. The seminary transferred to Concord, N.H., in 1847, then moved to Boston in 1867 and was chartered anew as the Boston Theological Seminary. In 1869, when BU was founded, the seminary became the University's School of Theology.