{"id":28,"date":"2017-10-20T18:42:18","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T18:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www-dev.montclair.edu\/lasting-lessons\/?page_id=28"},"modified":"2017-10-20T18:42:18","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T18:42:18","slug":"west","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/lasting-lessons\/west\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Lou West"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Professor Emerita,
\nMathematical Sciences<\/p>\n

For more than 40 years until her retirement in 2012, Professor Emerita Mary Lou West inspired and mentored students in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and shared her passion for scientific education, and especially for physics and astronomy.<\/p>\n

The driving force behind the University\u2019s popular Public Telescope Nights, where anyone interested in looking at the night sky through a telescope is welcome, West is a familiar figure at both the University and in the surrounding communities. She is active in the New Jersey branch of the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Astronomical Society and in the local astronomy club, the North Jersey Astronomical Group, which helps support the Public Telescope Nights.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\n
\"Mary<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

To her former students, however, West is better known as an inspirational teacher and guide who involved them in her research and helped them with their own. \u201cI worked on two major projects and several minor ones with her as an undergraduate physics student,\u201d recalls Elias Ahadi \u201998, who built a homemade seismograph out of parts from Radio Shack for one of the projects. \u201cThe seismograph picked up an earthquake that occurred in California in the fall of 1999.\u201d<\/p>\n

West was also an effective and engaging educator. \u201cI took three astronomy classes with Dr. West for my major and each class was a small, novel adventure into the breadth of space sciences,\u201d recalls Josh Kilian-Meneghin \u201915. \u201cNot only was the pertinent material covered, but we honed our communication skills as well, imparting our newfound knowledge on a younger generation at the public astronomy nights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahadi remembers taking West\u2019s course on computer simulations of physical systems. \u201cI was immediately hooked on the field of simulations,\u201d he says. \u201cEverything that I learned from her in that course I would later use as a foundation to build upon.\u201d<\/p>\n

A graduate of Cornell University (BA and MS) and Columbia University (PhD), West\u2019s research interests included topics such as meteorite composition and structure; cosmic rays; galactic structure; and physics education. She regularly worked with students on research projects and served as an advisor and mentor to many, even arranging for some students to accompany her to national conferences.<\/p>\n

\u201cProfessor West was an amazing person who always wanted her students to be involved in a project to develop better problem-solving and critical-thinking skills that would be applicable in any future endeavor,\u201d says Ahadi. \u201cI will always regard her as my best mentor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kilian-Meneghin agrees: \u201cDr. West imparted sage advice and inspiration\u2026she is the kind of teacher who makes Montclair State unique.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To her former students, however, West is better known as an inspirational teacher and guide who involved them in her research and helped them with their own. \u201cI worked on two major projects and several minor ones with her as an undergraduate physics student,\u201d recalls Elias Ahadi \u201998, who built a homemade seismograph out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-28","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/lasting-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/lasting-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/lasting-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/lasting-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/lasting-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/lasting-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/28\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/lasting-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/lasting-lessons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}