Steven Shapiro
I started using computers at about the same time that Rex began teaching at Guilford - but I was in the 3rd grade! I thoroughly enjoy working with students and have supervised numerous student research projects, many of them resulting in student presentations at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (see CV). Before coming to Guilford in 1995, I was a graduate student in geophysics at M.I.T. (the same school, but different program, where Don earned his Ph.D.). There, I created computer models of the earth's interior to investigate how the earth might have maintained thick (> 400 km) continents for billions of years. More recently, with funding from the Research Corporation and the National Science Foundation, I worked with Guilford physics students and scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to measure the gravitational deflection of electromagnetic radiation by the Sun to more accurately test a prediction from Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Our estimate for this deflection is within one standard deviation of General Relativity's prediction and our estimated standard error is nearly four times smaller than that of any other published measurement of gravitational deflection. I grew up in Lexington, MA and received my undergraduate degree from Colby College, a small liberal arts college in Maine where I also met my wife, Karen Jo, in the third week of our first year. Since 2004, I have been dividing my time between the physics department and the Academic Dean's office where I have been serving as Associate Academic Dean. I have two amazing children, Elina and David (see above), who make regular appearances in the physics department.