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The physics curriculum, which is both rewarding and rigorous, includes a strong background in both theoretical fundamentals and extensive laboratory work. In addition to its traditional task of preparing students for graduate work in physics or astronomy, it provides a solid foundation for study in related fields such as environmental studies, atmospheric physics, oceanography, geophysics and bio- physics for work in industry, and in secondary-school teaching. Other physics majors go on to careers in medicine, business, law and public policy.
The department encourages student involvement in research, either in a faculty member's particular field of interest or in an area of the student's own choosing. The new Andrew Building provides state-of-the-art teaching facilities for astronomy and introductory physics classes and laboratories, as well as student computer and research areas and three new faculty research labs. A search is currently underway for an experimentalist to keep department staffing at 7 full-time faculty. In addition to the skills he or she brings, current experimental facilities are available in electron scattering, nonlinear optics, holography, Raman scattering, scanned probe microscopy, and low-temperature physics, as well as high-level computer simulation and graphics. The department also enjoys exceptional astronomical facilities: 12- and 22-inch telescopes on campus and a 40-inch telescope at the Table Mountain observatory, a dark site in the San Gabriel Mountains about an hour's drive from campus.
David Tanenbaum is the recently-hired condensed- matter experimental physicist in the department. His research interests include surface microscopy and patterning technologies for thin-film materials used in nanometer-scale microelectronics. Richard Mawhorter is an experimentalist in electron-molecule scattering; he recently returned from a sabbatical in Germany where he studied scattering from oriented molecules. Catalin Mitescu, with engineering training and research interests in superconductivity, liquid crystals, critical phenomena, disordered matter, and fluid dynamics, has spent his sabbaticals, for over 25 years, as visiting professor and scientist in Paris and Marseille, in close collaboration with leading scientists there. Thomas Moore, whose research area is relativistic astrophysics, is also interested in issues regarding physics education; he is continuing to develop an innovative introductory physics course, Six Ideas That Shaped Physics, which grew out of the national-level Introductory University Physics Project and has been adopted by 35 colleges and universities. Bryan Penprase, an observational astronomer specializing in interstellar clouds and star formation, collaborates with colleagues at JPL and in Italy, and carries on Pomona's hundred-year tradition of strong astronomy instruction. He also teaches a popular course on ancient cosmology. Alma Zook ('72), who has worked in both astronomy and optics, currently collaborates with a group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the observation of quasars. She is also an amateur oboist, and teaches a popular Physics of Music course.
Physics Department Home Page
Astronomy Home Page
Archeoastronomy Home Page
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