Bryan Kent Wallace
Interview by Kiran Gurung, Colloquium Manager
Bryan Kent Wallace
Kiran Gurung: Can you tell us a bit about your career as a physicist? What do you research, and what's the latest in physics we should know about?
Bryan Kent Wallace: So, my duties are kind of broad. I am a Professor of Physics. I teach University Physics and most of the Education Physics Laboratories. I am also the primary investigator of the Fisk University Rocket Team. The Rocket Team was formed to compete in a NASA rocket competition known as Student Launch Initiative (SLI). The competition was to design, build, and a rocket to take a scientific payload to an altitude of a mile. Our first competition was back in 2006. We won second place in altitude. We use our rockets to do atmospheric studies.
Bryan Kent Wallace: So, my duties are kind of broad. I am a Professor of Physics. I teach University Physics and most of the Education Physics Laboratories. I am also the primary investigator of the Fisk University Rocket Team. The Rocket Team was formed to compete in a NASA rocket competition known as Student Launch Initiative (SLI). The competition was to design, build, and a rocket to take a scientific payload to an altitude of a mile. Our first competition was back in 2006. We won second place in altitude. We use our rockets to do atmospheric studies.
Dr. Wallace gives rocket demonstration
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Dr. Wallace speaks at MLK High School
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Aside from rocket launches, our rocket team engages in outreach in the metro public schools. We go to schools and give science demonstrations and presentations on physics, astronomy, and rocketry. We like to show students of color and women there are people who engage in challenging STEM fields that are normally associated with white males. Hence, I am not your traditional physicist - my career is focused on broadening the participation of women and people of color in STEM-related career fields. I also speak around the country at various schools and organizations promoting diversity in STEM and encouraging persistence while striving to achieve your academic and professional goals.
My research is centered around curriculum and programs that make the math-intensive curriculum more accessible to under-represented populations such as Physics, Engineering, and Astronomy. Most recently, I had the honor of being appointed to a review committee for the National Academy of Science. This committee did an assessment of the research portfolio of NASA’s Science Activation. Its report was published in December of 2019.
My research is centered around curriculum and programs that make the math-intensive curriculum more accessible to under-represented populations such as Physics, Engineering, and Astronomy. Most recently, I had the honor of being appointed to a review committee for the National Academy of Science. This committee did an assessment of the research portfolio of NASA’s Science Activation. Its report was published in December of 2019.
Fisk University helps with Engineering Day
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Dr. Wallace speaks with Professors on teaching strategies
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KG: As a The Bridge resident, you were involved in making a "pointillism perspective for instruction" video. Can you tell us a bit about this project, and what motivated you and your partner?
BKW: So our project evolved from a conversation about perception and perspectives. When one thinks about it, a person’s perception is their reality. So many people feel that Math and Science aren’t “their thing.” In many years of teaching I have come to the conclusion, if that is your mindset, you are right, and if you believe the opposite of that, you are right. Many times when I start on a difficult concept in class, I don’t focus on the curriculum. I focus on the student’s perception of the problem and its difficulty. I could throw a billion-dollar curriculum at a student. If that student doesn’t think they are smart enough to solve the problem and that curriculum does not address that student’s lack of self-efficacy, they are not going to learn it.
My partner and I had discussions on how difficult concepts are the sum of much more fundamental and simplistic principles. When one starts to synthesize these different fundamental concepts, it creates a foundation that can lead to understanding and comprehension. So when one thinks about it, you are taking small bits of information that lead to an understanding of larger concepts.
Well, isn’t that a lot like pointillism? An artist takes hundreds of dots and puts together on a “microscopic” scale that collectively makes an image when viewed on the “macroscopic” scale. One perception of education could be that it is an ever-evolving picture using the pointillism technique. Now, this is a bit of an analogy, but if you extrapolate it to larger concepts, you might see this pattern in the very Universe we live in.
Let’s take stars for instance. Stars, as massive as they are, simply are points of light when viewed from Earth. However, if you broaden your field of view, those individual points of light make structures we call constellations. That concept lends itself wonderfully to this discussion because the constellations are with respect to which civilization that interpreted the night’s sky. The Native North American Indians saw the same skies as the Romans and Greeks but came up with dramatically different constellations with completely different stories for their characters.
Now take the image of an entire galaxy. From a distance, they appear as a solid object, but in reality, they are a collection of billions of starts that have lightyears of distance between each individual star. Same stars, but different structures depending on your focus (perception).
BKW: So our project evolved from a conversation about perception and perspectives. When one thinks about it, a person’s perception is their reality. So many people feel that Math and Science aren’t “their thing.” In many years of teaching I have come to the conclusion, if that is your mindset, you are right, and if you believe the opposite of that, you are right. Many times when I start on a difficult concept in class, I don’t focus on the curriculum. I focus on the student’s perception of the problem and its difficulty. I could throw a billion-dollar curriculum at a student. If that student doesn’t think they are smart enough to solve the problem and that curriculum does not address that student’s lack of self-efficacy, they are not going to learn it.
My partner and I had discussions on how difficult concepts are the sum of much more fundamental and simplistic principles. When one starts to synthesize these different fundamental concepts, it creates a foundation that can lead to understanding and comprehension. So when one thinks about it, you are taking small bits of information that lead to an understanding of larger concepts.
Well, isn’t that a lot like pointillism? An artist takes hundreds of dots and puts together on a “microscopic” scale that collectively makes an image when viewed on the “macroscopic” scale. One perception of education could be that it is an ever-evolving picture using the pointillism technique. Now, this is a bit of an analogy, but if you extrapolate it to larger concepts, you might see this pattern in the very Universe we live in.
Let’s take stars for instance. Stars, as massive as they are, simply are points of light when viewed from Earth. However, if you broaden your field of view, those individual points of light make structures we call constellations. That concept lends itself wonderfully to this discussion because the constellations are with respect to which civilization that interpreted the night’s sky. The Native North American Indians saw the same skies as the Romans and Greeks but came up with dramatically different constellations with completely different stories for their characters.
Now take the image of an entire galaxy. From a distance, they appear as a solid object, but in reality, they are a collection of billions of starts that have lightyears of distance between each individual star. Same stars, but different structures depending on your focus (perception).
Dr. Wallace giving a physics demonstration
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Dr. Wallace brings STEM to Homecoming
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KG: What was the significant take-home message from for you?
BKW: Science and art have an ebb and flow in the way they mirroring each other. Historically, art has been a way of visually representing images of our real-world and what existed in our minds. Science makes use of visual representations through diagrams, models, and charts to help us visualize and understand the universe we live in. This collaboration was a great opportunity to explore theses concepts in a practical way and apply them to strategies for curriculum development and fostering greater understanding in students who face challenges comprehending complex scientific concepts.
KG: Anything else you'd like to share?
BKW: I just want to thank the SciArt organization for allowing me to work with a wonderful partner and broaden the conceptual framework of my own practice as an educator. It was a wonderful experience.
BKW: Science and art have an ebb and flow in the way they mirroring each other. Historically, art has been a way of visually representing images of our real-world and what existed in our minds. Science makes use of visual representations through diagrams, models, and charts to help us visualize and understand the universe we live in. This collaboration was a great opportunity to explore theses concepts in a practical way and apply them to strategies for curriculum development and fostering greater understanding in students who face challenges comprehending complex scientific concepts.
KG: Anything else you'd like to share?
BKW: I just want to thank the SciArt organization for allowing me to work with a wonderful partner and broaden the conceptual framework of my own practice as an educator. It was a wonderful experience.
Learn more about Dr. Wallace on his website
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