Prize Recipient


Recipient Picture

Ramon Torres-Isea
University of Michigan

Citation:

"For dedication to the spirit of hands-on experimental instruction in Physics, inspirational teaching in the Advanced Undergraduate Laboratory of the University of Michigan, and continued contributions to physics laboratory instruction in the United States."

Background:

Ramón O. Torres‐Isea is an Adjunct Lecturer and Senior Research Laboratory Specialist at the Department of Physics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Physics from Eastern Michigan University in 1980 and 1983, and quickly developed a career as an industrial physicist. He has taught undergraduate physics for twenty years, and a graduate course in computer control of research instrumentation for ten years. He is director of the Intermediate and Advanced Physics Laboratories, teaches intermediate laboratories, and co‐teaches the senior laboratories with a rotating group of faculty members. Ramón has performed research in optical depolarization in birefringent crystals, electrical arc physics, shape‐memory alloys, and for the past ten years in nuclear physics, as part of a team led by Prof. Frederick Becchetti at the University of Michigan‐University of Notre Dame TwinSol facilities. He is co‐developer of the UM‐DAS, a deuterated scintillator array for fast neutron detection. He is also co‐inventor of three U.S. patented technologies: actuators which couple shape‐memory alloy thermal elements with magnetic elements; arc‐suppressing current interrupters; and asynchronous magnetic‐bead rotation technology for use in identifying and treating bacterial infections. He is a member of APS, AAPT, IEEE, ALPhA, and PIRA.


Selection Committee:

Elizabeth George, Chair; M. Eblen-Zayas; G.C. Spalding; G. Potvin; K.R. Purdy Drew