Simon Catterall

Relevant Information
Office	Physics 309
Office Hours	See course page
Office Phone Number	x5978
E-mail	smc@physics.syr.edu

Biographical Info

Simon Catterall is an Associate Professor of Physics at Syracuse University. He was born in England in 1964 and obtained a BA in Physics from Oxford University in 1985. In 1989 he received a D.Phil. in Theoretical Physics from Oxford. Following research appointments at Cambridge University, University of Illinois and the European Centre for Particle Physics in Geneva, he joined the faculty at Syracuse in 1993.

His research field is elementary particle physics with special emphasis on computational physics. Particular research themes include random surfaces, supersymmetric lattice field theories, and discrete quantum gravity. He has authored over forty research publications.

Over the past few years he has been involved with integrating computers into the undergraduate classroom. As part of this he has developed an internet-based multimedia module Mind and Machine used in the course Science for the 21st Century. He also helped develop the SimScience website devoted to explaining how computer simulations are used in science. The latter two projects received NSF support. Simon also developed a course teaching the basics of chaos and fractals through the use of Java-based programming labs - Science and Computers. He has also teaches Introduction to Quantum Mechanics.

Outside the classroom Simon is a keen rockclimber and mountaineer being past President of the Oxford University Mountaineering Club. He has climbed extensively both in Britain, the United States, South America and the European Alps. See some slides from a recent trip to the Cordillera Vilcanota in southern Peru.