Message from the Departing Head

I am proud of this department and the things we collectively achieved. But now it is time for a new face and a fresh perspective, someone with lots of energy and drive. I feel very confident leaving the department's management in Adrian's capable hands. He will provide inspirational leadership for years to come, and it won't be boring. Godspeed Adrian!

On August 1, Professor Adrian Del Maestro became the new Head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Adrian joined the faculty just two years ago as the first senior hire for the faculty cluster in Quantum Materials for Future Technologies. He came to UT with impeccable credentials: an MS from Yale and PhD from Harvard, postdoctoral positions at the University of British Columbia and Johns Hopkins, and a distinguished faculty career at the University of Vermont.

Since his arrival in 2020, Adrian continued his highly successful line of research, working at the interface of quantum many-body physics and information theory, and played a key role in expanding the quantum materials cluster. He also developed new courses such as an interdisciplinary machine learning course that appears to be in great demand. Now, he has taken it upon him the lead the department through these tumultuous times.

Departmental leadership changes every so often. Since our beginning in 1908, we have only had seven department heads: James Porter (1908- 31), Kenneth Hertel (1935-56), Alvin Nielsen (1956-69), Bill Bugg (1969-1995), Lee Riedinger (1996-2000), Soren Sorensen (2000-2012), and yours truly (2012-2022).

As with all administrative jobs, the pressure and workload increased steadily over the years. Ever stricter emphasis on regulatory compliance and the non-stop rollout of new initiatives from higher up constantly demand the Head's attention. Fortunately, in many ways the university is changing for the better and this offers the Head opportunities to strategize, try new things, and hopefully reach for the stars. This has been the fun part of my job.

The physics department is doing very well and this truly has been a collective achievement. My predecessor, Professor Soren Sorensen, already left the department in an excellent shape, but the age distribution of the faculty was quite worrisome. Anticipating many upcoming retirements, we needed to recruit aggressively, but the country was hit with a recession that was impacting UT's budget. Faculty replacement is very costly, and I was convinced that at best we could hope for was a leaner and meaner physics department. Meanwhile we were confronted with departures of some of the department's top faculty (Witek Nazarewicz, Pengcheng Dai). What I couldn't imagine at the time was the incredible support we would get from the College that helped us thrive this past decade. Importantly, the economy also turned around. Since 2012 we hired 20 tenure-line faculty (some with shared appointments), one centrally funded Joint Faculty, three full-time lecturers, and five new staff members. Fourteen faculty members either retired or left for other reasons. We have grown from 26.1 to 33.6 tenure-line FTEs with a total faculty count of 41. The average faculty age dropped from about 55 to 50.5.

I am still not quite sure how this all happened. However, we can all be thrilled with the caliber of the people we hired. We should credit the respective search committees and especially the search committee chairs for all the hard work they did in recruiting so many excellent candidates. We can all marvel at their wisdom in selecting our finalists. Meanwhile, our young faculty are very successful with teaching, research and funding. They are rising through the ranks and are making their mark on the department. They also bring a lot of enthusiasm and passion for shared governance and improving the departmental climate and educational experiences of our students.

Physics is also doing well by other metrics. The undergraduate cohort has grown from about 80 to 140 students, and for the first time we graduated over 35 undergraduates in one year (2021) though numbers fluctuate a bit. Our graduate cohort is more diverse than ever. Physics continues to be UT's top department in terms of research funding, with annual research expenditures fluctuating between $10 and $15M. We are now ranked 36 among public universities in the latest U.S. News & World Report, a jump of 15 places compared to 2018. Last year was the icing on the cake. Under the inspirational leadership of Professors Kate Jones and Tony Mezzacappa, we realized a major undergraduate curriculum reform, which included the creation of a new BA program in Physics. We hired four assistant professors, which also concluded the cluster hire in quantum materials, and we received the largest estate gift ever that promises to be a game changer in the way the department can promote and reward excellence.

Surely, the department faces many challenges. Achieving gender diversity remains a nagging issue. With eight women on the faculty, we are close to national average. However, recent trends showed a significant increase in the number of women faculty nationally while our recent searches fell short of this goal. With a shifting emphasis on cluster hiring and other special initiatives, it will become increasingly difficult to diversify our applicant pools. On the education front, innovation will remain key. Our graduation rates are still disappointing. Meanwhile, students are expecting more direct economic benefits from their education. They want flexible course offerings, online courses, certificate programs, and online degree programs. While the department has made great strides by offering more course online, much work remains to be done to develop these courses while faculty are already overcommitted. Excessive workload, pressure and anxiety is affecting faculty, students, and staff alike and remains a concern.

Departments are facing uncertainty in light of the university's implementation of a new budget model, also known as the RCM model. While these changes are not supposed to impact departments directly, at least for now, it is not clear how the College will be able to support competitive faculty startups. This, of course, directly impacts our ability to hire new faculty. This is only one of many concerns though we are told not to worry.

Stepping down brings mixed emotions. I am eager to get back into research. Condensed matter physics is evolving rapidly and it just seemed impossible for me to keep up. The Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing (IAMM) is an exciting place to work and I greatly enjoy working with the quantum materials group. Hopefully we can land a big center grant together as it would be a major boost for our reputation and our ability to attract the best and brightest. But I will miss the daily interactions with my colleagues in Nielsen. My management team, with Associate Heads Kate Jones and Marianne Breinig and Undergraduate Laboratory Director Dr. Christine Cheney, was absolutely fantastic. Together we made many tough decisions, but those were made in good spirit and always leaving room for humor. Without the incredible effort of the departmental staff, the department would not function at all. I always felt very confident delegating some of the most important matters to the staff because I knew I can always trust and rely on them. This trust is absolutely critical.

I am proud of this department and the things we collectively achieved. But now it is time for a new face and a fresh perspective, someone with lots of energy and drive. I feel very confident leaving the department's management in Adrian's capable hands. He will provide inspirational leadership for years to come, and it won't be boring. Godspeed Adrian!

HW, August 2022

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