Nanotechnology Researcher Named Arkansas Professor of the Year

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education has announced the national and state Professor of the Year Awards. Physicist Greg Salamo, the Joe N. Basore Professor in Nanotechnology and Innovation in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, was named Arkansas Professor of the Year.

Winners were evaluated on their dedication, their positive effects on students and their ability to advance undergraduate teaching.

Salamo has been teaching for nearly 40 years. He teaches a class of about 120 students called “Physics for Architects,” which he created 34 years ago with support from the National Science Foundation to better motivate and engage freshman students majoring in architecture and help them learn important principles in physics.

He also created “Laser Physics,” “Nonlinear Optics” and “Nanofabrication” with support from the National Science Foundation. Recently he and other colleagues at the University of Arkansas developed “Studio-N,” a combination of classroom and laboratory for interdisciplinary teams of faculty and freshmen and sophomores.

“It was founded on the premise that one approach to undergraduate research may not fit all students. Our studio approach offers a complementary pathway to the more traditional one student-one faculty member approach,” said Salamo.

Salamo received his doctorate in physics from the City University of New York in 1973, where he also worked as an intern student at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J. His postdoctoral work was at the Institute of Optics of the University of Rochester in New York. He joined the faculty of the University of Arkansas in January of 1975, where he is now a Distinguished Professor of physics and the Basore Professor in Nanotechnology and Innovation. He has published nearly 300 papers in refereed journals, many with contributions from undergraduate students, given numerous contributed and invited talks, and contributed several book chapters. He also pursues the development of interdisciplinary research and education through creating new courses and degree programs to provide greater career opportunities for students and faculty.

He is the principal investigator for an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates grant, a GK-12 NSF Graduate Student Fellowship program, an NSF Partnership for Innovation program for spin-off small businesses and a Hughes Grant for an undergraduate research center in nanoscience. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and won the University of Arkansas Baum Teaching Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2007.