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Lillian Christie McDermott is a Professor of Physics and Director and founder of the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington. She is one of the founders of the field of physics education research in the United States, and has pioneered its work to understand student learning of physics and to develop research-based instructional strategies.

Early education and career
McDermott received her B.A. from Vassar College and a Ph.D. in experimental nuclear physics from Columbia University (1959). Her early career included teaching appointments at the City College of New York, Seattle University, and the University of Washington (UW), and she has been at the UW ever since.

Notable accomplishments
With UW colleague Arnold Arons, she created a program within the physics department for the education of K-12 teachers. In 1973, she initiated (at the UW) what is perhaps the first program in which graduate students earn a doctoral degree in physics for conducting research in physics education. In doing so, she established the Physics Education Group, one of the first research groups in physics education in the United States.

Her career has largely focused on three areas of physics education research (PER):


 * 1) Research on the conceptual understanding of students of introductory, college-level physics, and how it may be impacted by different instructional methods,
 * 2) The development and dissemination of effective research-based instructional strategies for teaching introductory college-level physics concepts, and
 * 3) Advocating for PER as a rigorous research subfield of physics within the larger physics community.

Significant awards and honors
McDermott is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society. Her most significant awards include:

1990 – Robert A. Millikan Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT)

2000 – Education Research Award of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents

2001 – Oersted Medal of AAPT (the highest award of the AAPT)

2002 – Medal of the International Commission of Physics Education (International Union of Pure and Applied Physics)

2013 – Melba Newell Phillips Award of the AAPT

The American Physical Society selected the Physics Education Group as the recipient of the 2008 Excellence in Education Award. The group conducts a coordinated program of research, curriculum development, and instruction and has worked to establish research on the learning and teaching of physics as a field for scholarly inquiry by physicists.

Research-based physics curriculum
Physics By Inquiry, by Lillian C. McDermott, Peter S. Shaffer, and the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington Tutorials in Introductory Physics, by Lillian C. McDermott, Peter S. Shaffer, and the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington