Over 80 educators and students from North Carolina and Virginia visited Elon's Innovation Hall for the 2025 Spring Meeting of the North Carolina Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers.
The Department of Physics and Astronomy hosted the 2025 Spring Meeting of the North Carolina Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers (NCS-AAPT). Over 80 people attended the conference, including high school teachers, college students and college faculty. Several Elon alumni were present, in addition to many current students, faculty and staff.
The two-day conference featured plenary talks by Chris Richardson, associate professor of astrophysics and Japheth E. Rawls professor, on intermediate mass black holes; Emily Evans, T.E. Powell Jr. professor and professor of physics, on magnetic soft robots; and Blake Hament, assistant professor of engineering, on the importance of modeling the relevant physics of robots and drones.
Attendees of the conference visited the Three College Observatory in nearby Graham, North Carolina. This observatory, opened in 1981, is owned and operated by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and Guilford College.
Workshops, student research and pedagogical discussions filled out the remainder of the conference time. The conference ended with a business meeting and vote for new officers, during which time Associate Professor of Physics and Chair of the Department of Physics Martin Kamela was voted in as the Section representative to the national AAPT organization for a three-year term.