Prize Recipient

Marie Lopez del Puerto
University of St. Thomas

"For developing an active, inclusive, and supportive community of physics educators dedicated to integrating computation into their instruction; creating, reviewing, and disseminating instructional materials; and generating knowledge of computation in physics curricula and of effective practices."

Marie Lopez del Puerto received her “Licenciatura en Física” (2002) from Universidad de las Américas-Puebla in Puebla, Mexico, and her M.S. (2004) and Ph.D. (2008) degrees from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, specializing in computational studies of electronic properties of materials. She has been a faculty member at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota since 2008, where she has continued working in computational physics and on issues related to pedagogy. In 2012 she joined the Partnership for Integrating Computation into Undergraduate Physics (PICUP), a group of faculty members from institutions across the United States who are working to lower the barriers for faculty to integrate computation into their courses. With PICUP she has planned and delivered faculty development workshops, organized conferences, developed educational resources, and helped create a vibrant community of educators committed to improving undergraduate education in Physics. Marie has been a member of the American Physical Society’s Committee on Minorities; member, vice-chair, and chair of the American Association of Physics Teachers’ (AAPT) Committee on Undergraduate Education in Physics; section representative of the Minnesota Area Association of Physics Teachers; and is a current member of an AAPT Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force. She is professor and chair of the Physics Department at the University of St. Thomas.

2023 Selection Committee Members: Clausell Mathis (Chair), Carmen Pantoja, Edmund Bertschinger