Gwo-Ching Wang, Department Chair and Professor of Physics, was awarded the William H. Wiley Distinguished Faculty Award on May 1, 2006, for her outstanding contributions in surface and interface ordering phenomena, and her leadership in promoting research experience for undergraduates and interdisciplinary graduate education.

Chair of the Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy department since 2000, Wang has been at Rensselaer since 1984. She previously won another prestigious Rensselaer award, the Early Career Award in 1988.

Excellence in Teaching

Dr. Wang has taught both undergraduate and graduate level physics courses, and has developed state-of-the-art courses by integrating new science gained from research into basic physics principles taught in courses. Examples are Surface Physics and Scanning Probe Microscopy.

She supervised the graduation of 16 Ph.D. and five M.S. students since joining RPI in 1984. She has a track record of supervising some of the best Ph.D. students in the Physics Department. For example, eight of her former Ph.D. students have received 14 national and Rensselaer awards.

Promotion of Student Research

Dr. Wang built the first surface physics lab at Rensselaer . She imported the first commercially available high-resolution low-energy electron diffractometer from Germany and setup the surface physics lab in the mid 80s and thin film physics in 90s and nanostructures in 2000s. Her group also built the first scanning tunneling microscope (1986 Nobel Prize winning technique), surface magneto-optical Kerr effect, and ferromagnetic resonance techniques at Rensselaer. Her former graduate students used these techniques and produced award winning scientific results. Scientists from the US and Canada came to RPI to learn these techniques.

Dr. Wang directs three research programs: the REU, IGERT and GAANN. The National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) program has consecutively run for the past 15 summers at Rensselaer. Over 170 students from all over the U.S. graduated from this program. She supervised over 20 REU and RPI students in the past 15 years.

The NSF sponsored IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Traineeship) fellowship program entitled, “THz science and technology – a studio approach” provides 15 fellowships each year for five years.

The Department of Energy sponsored GAANN (Graduate Assistant in the Area of National Need) fellowship program entitled, “Terascale electronic and photonic material and devices” provides eight fellowships each year for three years.

Both the IGERT and GAANN programs involve faculty from multiple departments in SOS and SOE, minority institutes, and international partners. She is the first to receive both fellowship grants at Rensselaer .

Professional Achievements

Dr. Wang serves as a reviewer for many journals such as Physical Review Letters, Physical Review B, Surface Science and funding agencies such as NSF, DOE, Research Corporation, and the American Chemical Society.

She has also served as: advisory committee member and committee member of Annual Conference on Physical Electronics, local chair and organizer of 53rd Annual Conference on Physical Electronics, and panelist for various NSF programs.

Dr. Wang is a fellow the American Physical Society and the American Vacuum Society, as well as a member of the Materials Research Society. She has published over 200 papers two books, and three book chapters.

Published May 3, 2006