Marshall Wilt
Professor of Physic, Emeritus
Education
BA: physics, Centre College
PhD: physics, Vanderbilt University
BIOGRAPHY
Marshall Wilt retired in 2005 as a professor of physics at Centre College, where he had taught since 1967 and is a past Centre Scholar. He has directed a summer science program at the college for gifted high school students and a physics institute for high school teachers. Wilt also has chaired the sciences division at the College.
RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS
Wilt routinely involves his students in collaborative research and has had at least one student pursue research with him in each of the last five summers. He has challenged those students by having them build some of the sensitive and crucial equipment needed for studies in laser spectroscopy. Working alongside Wilt, the students have built a laser and an electronic board to control it, as well as parts of an optical bench and other equipment. The lab has a computer interface with a digitizing oscilloscope. Presently, Wilt is attempting to use the technique of optical pumping to measure quantum electrodynamical effects.
Wilt has published twenty papers in internationally recognized refereed journals, often with Centre undergraduates as co-authors. Among the journals that have published his research are Journal of Inorganic Nuclear Chemistry, Journal of Chemical Physics, Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy, American Journal of Physics, and The Physics Teacher.
AWARDS
A rigorous scientist and dedicated teacher, Wilt was honored in 1990 as Kentucky's most outstanding science teacher at the college and university level. That award reflects the depth and quality of his work.