Physics & Astronomy

I am a faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Brigham Young University (BYU). Before coming to BYU, I was a faculty member at Northern Arizona University (NAU). Prior to my academic appointments, I worked in the Solid State Theory Group at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. I recieved a Ph.D. from Univ. of California, Davis under Barry M. Klein.

I have taught a variety of classes but my favorites are those where the students use the computer as a tool to model physical systems. I find it fascinating that computer simulation, "virtual experiments," can be used to learn useful things about the physical world. Ground-breaking discoveries and surprising, but accurate, predictions have been made by simulations.

In my research I simulate the behavior of materials, based on "first principles", that is by (numerically) solving the Schrodinger equation. Primarily I am interested in how the properties of metals and semiconductors are affected by alloying. I am also interested in improving existing models for large-scale simulations that are based on first-principles input.