College Physics

Ron Hellings is emeritus Professor of Physics at Montana State University.  He completed a BS in Physics at BYU, an MS at UCLA, and a PhD at Montana State University-Bozeman. He has taught Physics at Cal Poly-Pomona, Harvey Mudd College, and Pomona College. Ron spent twenty-five years as a Research Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory before moving back to Bozeman in 2001 to work as a Research Professor in the Physics Department at Montana State University. For a period of three years during his time at Montana State University, he was on loan to NASA Headquarters in Washington DC to act as Program Scientist for the Astrophysics Theory Program. Jeff Adams is Associate Provost at Millersville University. He received his B.Sc. in Engineering Physics from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, where he also earned his Ph.D. in Physics (1991) and his Bachelor of Education.  In 1996, Adams joined Montana State University in the field of physics education research where he co-founded the Conceptual Astronomy and Physics Education Research (CAPER) team.  From 2001 to 2011 he served as MSU's Assistant Vice-Provost for Academic Affairs.  Greg Francis is Professor of Physics at Montana State University.  He did his undergraduate work at Brigham Young University, and studied plasma physics as a graduate student at MIT.  After finishing his doctorate in 1987, he served as a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.  In 1990 Greg joined the Physics Education Research Group at the University of Washington in Seattle. Since 1992, Greg has experimented with active learning approaches in large introductory classes at Montana State University.  Greg is also co-author of Physics:  A Conceptual World View, one of the best-selling textbooks used in introductory physics courses.