Dr. Eric D. Wells
Assistant Professor of Physics
B.A. Hastings College
Ph.D. Kansas State University

Please share a little about your past. Where did you grow up and go to school?
While I was born in North Carolina, essentially my entire childhood was spent in Axtell, Nebraska. I'm sure you have heard of Axtell, it's just east of Funk. Anyway, I did my undergraduate work at Hastings College, majoring in math and physics, and then went to graduate school at Kansas State University and got my Ph.D. under the direction of Itzik Ben-Itzhak. After grad school, I did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia with Bob Jones. Itzik and Bob were great mentors, and I met and worked with a lot of other talented folks along the way.

How did your life's path lead you to Augustana? Why do you stay?
Beth and I were ready to come back to the Midwest after our time in Virginia, and Augustana offered a balance between family life, teaching, and research that we didn't think would be possible in the intense environment of a large research university.

Why did you study physics?
Originally, I studied physics because it was challenging and I wanted to see if I could do it. That isn't necessarily the best way to choose a career. But eventually I got hooked on research. For me, the process of doing science, starting from some crazy idea of how to attack a problem at the beginning, to wrapping up all the details and publishing the results at the end, is just a blast. At least when it all works... which it usually does... eventually.

Why should a student major in physics at Augustana? What is different about our program?
Physicists have neat toys! Seriously, physics involves the study of nature at a fundamental level. So, if you are fluent in physics, it allows you to address problems across the landscape of the physical world, from biology to astronomy. Many folks trained in physics are eventually lured out of the field because other professions, such as medicine, law, finance, journalism, and government value their problem solving ability and broad knowledge of diverse technical subjects. The people who do the luring usually pay pretty well.

The program at Augustana is distinguished by personal attention and access to high level research at the undergraduate level. My colleague Drew Alton is a member of the D0 collaboration at FermiLab, which is at the forefront of particle physics. Kansas State University, where I collaborate extensively, has an excellent reputation in my field of atomic, molecular and optical physics. So at Augie, you get the benefits of a small place, but access to much larger places too. It is a good combination, and has produced excellent outcomes for our recent graduates. Those that decide to continue study in physics have generally gotten into well-respected graduate programs and done well.

Tell us about the "3-2" engineering program at Augustana.
Basically, the "3-2" or "dual degree" engineering program allows you to take basic science and general education courses here for three years and then transfer to one of our partner schools (Columbia University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Minnesota) where you complete an ABET accredited degree in engineering. So in five years, you end up with two bachelors degrees: a B. A. from Augustana and a B. S. in an engineering specialty from one of the other schools. Our students that have gone this route have been very successful, and their engineering degrees are from places with national reputations. A key advantage is that you get to take introductory physics and calculus from an instructor who knows your name rather than in a huge class at a large technical school. It is probably instructive to compare four- or five-year graduation rates from large technical universities to that same indicator at Augustana.

What do you feel are the benefits of a liberal arts education?
We hear a lot about today's world being, to use Thomas Friedman's word, flat. While that is an excellent point, today's world is also fast. It is unlikely that you will be doing what you were trained to do a decade from now. So, you need an education that is adaptable. For the same reasons that physics provides the most adaptable technical education, a liberal arts background allows one to adapt to changing times much better than a more directed, career-specific education. Even in technical fields, liberally-educated people are valuable. The engineer that can design the highway overpass and then explain to the city council why the off-ramp needs to look the way it does is a valuable person to have around. Besides those solid economic benefits of the liberal arts, I think the intrinsic reasons are important as well. Knowing something about many different things allows you to understand and relate to many different kinds of people, and that makes life more interesting.

Read any good books lately?
Not as many as I would like. But I was interested by The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs last summer. He made some interesting arguments. And while I didn't get it finished, I enjoyed David O'Hara's recent book From Homer to Harry Potter: A Handbook on Myth and Fantasy. But then I got distracted over Christmas break by American Prometheus, a biography of Oppenheimer. So now I have multiple books I haven't finished.

Is international study important in physics?
Physics is an international business, and I have friends and collaborators scattered all over the globe. Japan, Germany, France, Spain, Israel, Jordan, Brazil, Argentina, India, Taiwan, Ireland, Turkey, and there are others I'm forgetting right now. Interestingly, one of my papers includes an Israeli and a Palestinian co-author. About politics they may disagree, but about two-center interference effects in double ionization of hydrogen molecules, we seem to have reached some consensus. This is probably one of the benefits of science that is not readily apparent on the surface.

What are your current research interests? Do students help with the research?
I'm generally interested in how small molecules dissociate or re-arrange after being hit by some intense, short duration, electric field. The electric field can be provided by a passing ion or by a laser, and by short duration I mean femtosecond or attosecond. The idea is that if you can figure out what the molecule is doing, maybe someday you can make a tailored electric pulse that makes the molecule dance the way you want it to. This would be a useful thing. Involving students in this work is the best part of my job.

What are some of your interests outside of Augustana?
Free time usually involves hanging out with my five year old son. He likes to watch the TV show Mythbusters with me, and he usually wants to know when I'm going to do some fun experiments like they do on the show. Crashing molecules is nothing compared to crashing trucks.

Do you have any accomplishments or things you're particularly proud of that you'd like to share?
I'm proud that several Augustana students (Nora Johnson, who did it twice, Jamie Kapplinger, Ryan Mello, Mike Lundy, Heather Baxter, and Kelsie Betsch) that have worked with me in the last few years have ended up co-authoring papers about their work in a little magazine called Physical Review. Jamie was one of only five undergraduates to speak at a national meeting last year. One of the great things about peer review is that good work usually gets acknowledged no matter if it occurred at Augustana or Harvard. Not that there is anything wrong with Harvard.

Do you interact with students outside of the classroom?
The most important teaching probably occurs outside the classroom. I spend a lot of time with students one-on-one or in small groups. Of course, mentoring students doing research activities involves extensive non-classroom interaction. I know all the physics majors pretty well by the time they graduate. You would have to ask them if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

What's the most unexpected thing you've been a part of during your time at Augustana?
Explaining to Loren Koepsell [Vice President for Finance and Administration] and Gene Marko [Director of Buildings and Grounds] that I needed to remove a window from the pendulum lounge in the Gilbert Science Center because the optics table wouldn't fit in the elevator. They took it pretty well.

If you could give prospective students one piece of advice as far as their college search, what would it be?
Find someplace that makes you feel comfortable and challenged at the same time. If you are uncomfortable, it is hard to accept challenge. If you are unchallenged, why bother?