Carl Wieman, Nobel-prize Laureate

Professor Carl E. Wieman was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics and named United States Professor of the Year in 2004. Currently working at the University of British Columbia, he is the only faculty member to hold both the highest research (Distinguished Professor) and teaching (Presidential Teaching Scholar) awards.

Wieman advocates an evidence-based approach to science education and suggests that similar approaches will be helpful in other educational areas.

Wieman joined UBC this year where he will immediately begin developing a science education project at UBC that emphasizes student experience, stimulates inquiry and encourages measurement of educational outcomes. UBC has committed $12 million over the next five years towards this initiative. “I am joining UBC because I am excited to be a part of this initiative and hope that my expertise can help realize it,” Wieman says.

Wieman will be only the second Nobel laureate working at a Canadian university (John C. Polanyi is at the University of Toronto).

Wieman was born in Corvallis, Oregon and graduated from Corvallis High School. Wieman earned his B.S. in 1973 from MIT and his PhD. from Stanford University in 1977; he was also given a Doctorate of Science (Honorary) from the University of Chicago in 1997. He was awarded the Lorentz Medal in 1998. In 2001, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Cornell and Wolfgang Ketterle. In 2004, he was named United States Professor of the Year among all doctoral and research universities.

In the last several years, Wieman has been particularly involved with efforts at improving science education and has conducted educational research on science instruction. Wieman currently serves as Chair of the Board on Science Education of the National Academy of Sciences. He has used and promotes Eric Mazur's pedagogical system called "peer instruction", where teachers repeatedly ask multiple-choice concept questions during class, and students reply on the spot with little wireless "clicker" devices. If a large proportion of the class chooses a wrong answer, students discuss among themselves and reply again.

David Wiley, Associate Professor of Instructional Technology and Director of the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning at Utah State University

David A. Wiley, currently an Associate Professor of Instructional Technology, is also the Director of the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning, (C()SL), at Utah State University. He is best known for having coined the term "open content" and creating the first open source-style license for non-software. His work on open content, open education and informal online learning communities has been reported in many international outlets, including the New York Times, the London Financial Times, The Hindu, The Globe and Mail, The Economist, MIT Technology Review and WIRED.

He has received the National Science Foundation's CAREER award and served as a Nonresident Fellow of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, served as the Chair of the NSF’s National Science Digital Library’s (NSDL) Standards Committee, presented at AERA, AECT, Internet2, WebNet and recently at the 6th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT).

Wiley earned his Ph.D., in Instructional Psychology and Technology, from Brigham Young University in 2000 and a BFA in vocal performance from Marshall University in Music in 1997. He has expressed personal interests in, among other things, Superstring Theory, Japanese music, world religions, and Musical Theater.

The Center for Open and Sustainable Learning (COSL) operates on the principle that "free and open access to educational opportunity is a basic human right". Because it is getting easier to develop and distribute electronic tools around the globe, C()SL sees the use of learning objects as a way to bring "open education" to all areas in an effort to fulfill "a greater ethical obligation than ever before to increase the reach of opportunity".

Much of Wiley's work has focused on the development of learning objects. On one website, reusability.org, he explains that learning objects are developed to be reused as a solution to the problem of "teacher bandwidth". The "teacher bandwidth" problem is defined as "the number of students we are capable of serving with our distance education offerings".