About our authors

Eugenia Etkina is a Distinguished Professor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She holds a PhD in physics education from Moscow State Pedagogical University and has more than 35 years of experience teaching physics. She is a recipient of 2014 Millikan Medal awarded to educators who made significant contributions to teaching physics, and a fellow of the AAPT. Professor Etkina designed and now coordinates one of the largest programs in physics teacher preparation in the United States, conducts professional development for high school and university physics instructors, and participates in reforms to the undergraduate physics courses. In 1993 she developed a system in which students learn physics using processes that mirror scientific practice. That system, called Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) serves as the basis for this textbook. Since 2000, Professors Etkina has conducted over 100 workshops for physics instructors and co-authored the first edition of College Physics and the Active Learning Guide. Professor Etkina is a dedicated teacher and an active researcher who has published over 60 peer-refereed articles.

Gorazd Planinsic is a Professor of Physics at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He has a PhD in physics from the University of Ljubljana. Since 2000 he has been leading the Physics Education program that prepares almost all high-school physics teachers for the country of Slovenia. He started his career in MRI physics and later switched to Physics Education Research. During the last 10 years, his work has mostly focused on the research of new experiments and how to use them more productively in teaching and learning physics. He is co-founder of the Slovenian hands-on science center House of Experiments. Professor Planinsic is co-author of more than 80 peer-refereed research articles, more than 20 popular science articles, and is the author of a university textbook for future physics teachers. In 2013 he received the Science Communicator of the Year award from the Slovenian Science Foundation.

The late Alan Van Heuvelen held a PhD in physics from the University of Colorado and was a pioneer in physics education research for several decades. He taught physics for 28 years at New Mexico State University, where he developed active learning materials including the Active Learning Problem Sheets (the ALPS Kits) and the ActivPhysics multimedia product. Materials such as these have improved student achievement on standardized qualitative and problem-solving tests. In 1993 he joined Ohio State University to help develop a physics education research group. He moved to Rutgers University in 2000 and retired in 2008. For his contributions to national physics education reform, he won the 1999 AAPT Millikan Medal and was selected a fellow of the American Physical Society. Over the span of his career, he led over 100 workshops on physics education reform. He worked with Professor Etkina in the development of the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) and co-authored the first edition of College Physics and the Active Learning Guide.

Joshua Rutberg is a physics professor at Rutgers University with a PhD in physics education. Their research explores the professional development of instructors adopting the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) approach, with a broader focus on evidence-based teaching practices in physics. Joshua began their career as a high school physics teacher in New York City and has since become a leader in educational professional development, facilitating workshops nationwide on active learning strategies, assessment practices, curriculum design, and integrating computation into physics instruction.

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