Jim Woodward

History Professor Emeritus and longtime friend of the department Jim Woodward has established our new Faculty Achievement Award through a generous donation to the department.

Jim has been a publishing physicist for a number of years and has maintained a laboratory in the department looking to examine the origins of inertia and related consequences of Mach's principle in general relativity. Our students also work in his lab taking independent study Phys 499 with him.

Jim was chair of the History department from 1982 to 1991 and retired in 2005, but remains well known and highly regarded across campus for his years of service throughout the university.

Through the Faculty Achievement Award, Jim has created a very generous $2,000 annual prize to spotlight individual physics faculty for a notable recent publication. He established a similar award for the History department, and prefers these awards stress faculty achievement and not be called Woodward Awards. Our inaugural recipients of the award are Professors Ionel Tifrea and Mike Loverude.