Your path: Christensen's Research Garners Honors
Terry Christensen's Research Garners Honors
Excerpt from an Oregon State University In the Spotlight article, March 2008.Marylhurst MAIS alum Terry Christensen is attracting national attention with his dissertation research on noted physicist John Archibald Wheeler.
Christensen — a physics major in college — was inspired while listening to a book by physicist Kip Thorne, who thanked his mentor, John Archibald Wheeler, in his acknowledgements. "It reminded me how much I missed physics and how much I enjoyed teaching," says Christensen. "I wanted to get back to it." When he did, Christensen also decided to focus his research on Wheeler, a theoretical physicist who revitalized the topic of general relativity and mentored 50 Ph.D. students, including Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman.
Christensen started pursuing a Ph.D. at Oregon State University in 2003 after earning a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies at Marylhurst University. His research on Wheeler is based on the idea that a skillful, proficient mentor may have a multiplicative influence through generations of scientists.
His work on Wheeler is attracting attention — in the past year, Christensen has received awards and honors from the National Science Foundation, the American Institute of Physics, the Philadelphia Area Center for the History of Science and the American Philosophical Society.