University of Tennessee physicist named Cottrell Scholar

(Press-News.org) A physics professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with a heart for transfer students has received the Cottrell Scholar Award.

Established in 1994, the award honors and helps to develop outstanding teacher-scholars who are recognized by their scientific communities for the quality and innovation of their research programs and their academic leadership skills. Assistant Professor of Physics Lawrence “Larry” Lee of UT’s College of Arts and Sciences will receive $120,000 over three years from the Research Corporation for Science and Advancement to strengthen the transfer pipeline of physics students who transfer to UT from community colleges and to further his research on experimental high-energy particles.

Lee, who joined UT in 2021, has already garnered recognitions including the UT Physics and Astronomy Graduate Research Advisor of the Year in 2024, the National Science Foundation’s Early Career Development Award in 2023, and both the UT Society of Physics Students Teacher of the Year and the College of Arts and Science’s Faculty Academic Outreach Teaching Award in 2022. He said he applied for the Cottrell Scholar Award because the program highly values transformative educational programs in addition to research excellence.

“That has been a huge priority for me since I came here four years ago,” said Lee, who joined UT after working in research for the University of Adelaide in Australia and Harvard University. “I quickly fell in love with the service we provide students in our department, and learned that I wanted to work with our students who transfer into physics from community colleges.”

Lee knows firsthand the unique challenges transfer students face, he said, because he started his educational journey at a community college. He later finished his bachelor’s degree at Rutgers University and his master’s and PhD at Yale University.

Lee’s Cottrell Scholar Award proposal included developing an introductory seminar course geared specifically for transfer students — who face different challenges from first-year college students, he noted — and developing transfer-specific mentorship that pairs transfer students with faculty members who were community college students themselves.

Lee also wants to increase department-level communication and connection with physics teachers at community colleges so UT can reach promising physics students sooner.

“Potentially we could provide research opportunities for them on campus prior to them joining UT,” he said.

The award will also help Lee continue his research into experimental high-energy particles, particularly his new interest in accelerator physics.

“My whole career as a collider physicist has been working on proton-proton collisions and what happens after they collide, and lately I’ve been trying to figure out how we could potentially collide muons, the heavier cousin of the electron, to get to much higher energies,” said Lee, who works with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva, Switzerland. “Now I’m starting to look at how you get to the point before you collide the particles and the physics of what goes into getting these particles to collide. The Cottrell award will allow me to continue to learn and contribute to the world of accelerator physics.”

While a lot of the work on collider and accelerator physics at CERN can be done remotely, Lee continues to send physics students to CERN for semesters or summers to give them the kind of hands-on experiences he gained when he lived and worked in Geneva for 10 years.

“For some students, this is not only their first trip out of the U.S. but also their first trip out of Tennessee,” he said.

Whether engaging with students in the classroom, collaborating with UT’s College of Architecture and Design on a museum exhibition to explain the physics of cosmic rays, or running a public outreach program that plays electronic music using physics concepts, Lee is passionate about bringing physics to those who aren’t necessarily interested in physics.

“I’m always looking for ways to expand the audience,” he said.

“Dr. Lee’s receipt of a Cottrell Scholar Award recognizes both his innovative teaching and his impactful research in the discipline of high-energy particle physics. The College of Arts and Sciences is extremely proud to count him among our outstanding teacher-scholars,” said Robert Hinde, interim executive dean of the college.

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