Vincent Rossi
Visiting Assistant Professor (2008)
|
Department of Physics
EducationB.A., English, Southern Oregon University, 1998 B.S., Physics, Oregon State University, 2003 B.S., Philosophy, Oregon State University, 2003
|
 |
Background and TeachingI was a physics and math geek in high school, and felt that I needed to expand my horizons when I began college. A bit naïve, I thought I had to move to the humanities in order to develop my creativity, so I studied writing and philosophy at Southern Oregon University. By the time I reached the end of those programs, I realized two things that led me back to physics. I realized that creativity isn’t limited to the humanities, but is involved in all fields of study. In particular, creativity is an integral part of scientific thought and discovery. I also realized that I needed a deeper understanding of the physical world in order to come closer to answering the questions I had developed as a student of Western and Indian Philosophies. That said, I am not so naïve as to think that physics will answer my philosophical questions—I just know that it gives me a more robust world view. Looking to broaden my horizons again, I went on to complete a degree in physics at Oregon State University. I thoroughly enjoy teaching—even as a writing student, I intended to work towards a career in education. I stayed at OSU for graduate studies in physics in order to work towards being a professor of physics. A large factor in deciding to stay at OSU for graduate school was the opportunity to gain teaching experience as a teaching assistant for the Paradigms in Physics Program. As a writing and philosophy major, I was use to interactive courses, full of discussion and debate. Traditionally, science courses are taught in a lecture format, with limited interaction. The Paradigms Program at OSU focused on developing new instructional methodologies in undergraduate physics courses, as well as incorporating methodologies based on Physics Education Research (PER) from other universities. The Paradigms and PER focus heavily on peer learning in the classroom, which appeals to my humanities side. Teachers tend to teach how they themselves were taught, and I was fortunate to come from engaging environments in both the humanities and sciences. I have worked over the last few years to broaden and improve my ability to teach in an interactive, student centered fashion. As a graduate student, I taught physics and astronomy for two years at Linn-Benton Community College. I also worked for a semester as a Visiting Instructor for the Texas A&M University Physics Department, helping adapt some of the Paradigms materials for their courses. I was drawn to Pacific University because the Physics Department is unanimously dedicated towards fostering interactive, student centered learning in their courses. In the Spring of 2009, I’ll be collaborating with Dr. Corinne Manogue at OSU and Dr. Michael Rogers at Ithaca College on adapting the Paradigms Energy & Entropy course for liberal arts schools such as ours. Pacific has the type of community I most enjoy learning and teaching in, so I’m excited to be a part of this department and university. I find physics to be an exciting and pragmatic discipline and hope to portray this to my students and hopefully inspire the same in them. In gaining a thorough understanding of the physical world at its most fundamental levels, physics students have a wide range of opportunities and fields of study beyond physics. I myself have chosen to focus on research in biomedical optics. Regardless of their chosen field of study, I would encourage all Pacific students to consider taking some physics electives in order to supplement and broaden their studies. Similarly, I would encourage physics majors to consider using their senior projects to investigate the phenomena that are most interesting to them. Biomedical Optics ResearchMy research interests are driven by a desire to use the principles of physics in order to better understand and study biological systems. More specifically, I’m interested in light-tissue interactions. Beyond the more obvious imaging and diagnostic applications, this discipline also covers clinical applications. My research focuses on using experimental and computational techniques in order to study how light propagates through bone tissues and their response. The primary motivation for this research is to help guide clinical applications of photodynamic therapy (PDT) in treating bone cancers. PDT is a selective means of treating cancerous tissues, employing photosensitizing drugs, light, and oxygen to destroy targeted tissues while minimizing damage to surrounding tissues. In order to effectively guide PDT in the clinical treatment of bone cancers, we must first be able to create an adequate model of light delivery within bone in order to determine sufficient light dosimetry within bone. The first step in modeling how light propagates through bone tissues is to determine their wavelength dependence of absorption and scattering. The resulting absorption and scattering coefficients are attributed with the attenuation of light as it propagates through tissue. I am using steady-state diffuse reflectance spectroscopy for this part of my research, where a source-detector pair of optical fibers separated by various distances can be used to measure the spatial and wavelength dependence of the measured reflectance at the surface of bone tissues. The measured reflectance can then be used to determine the absorption and scattering coefficients. Upon characterizing bone tissues, the optical properties can be imported into a computational Monte Carlo simulation in order to predict the fluence levels of light in bone during PDT for different sources and configurations. The Monte Carlo model I have created uses a series of cylindrical shells with different optical properties in order to approximate the cylindrical geometry of long bones. Working in a nontraditional field of physics research, I’ve worked with an interdisciplinary group of researchers, including researchers from the Division of Biomedical Engineering at Oregon Health & Sciences University, the College of Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University, and veterinarians both in private practice and at the Oregon State University College of Veterinary Medicine. In order to continue with an interdisciplinary research program, I have plans to begin working in collaboration with Dr. Paige Baugher in the Biology Department here at Pacific University. Given the emphasis on the allied health fields at Pacific University, I look forward to broadening my understanding of biological systems in order to find additional ways of applying physics towards their study, as well as the opportunity to build new collaborations. More importantly, I believe using physics to study biological systems lends itself to many opportunities for senior projects. With the emphasis on the allied health fields at Pacific, this is especially the case for physics students who also have interests and career goals in the allied health or biomedical fields. |
|