Meet the 2023 SPS Outstanding Chapter Advisor: Chad Kishimoto

When Kishimoto landed at the University of San Diego in 2014, an SPS chapter existed—but only on paper. He took the wheel. “I’m not sure how I first heard of SPS or that it was a thing, but it seemed like a valuable umbrella for building life in a department,” he says. And it was.

As the SPS chapter took hold, the department became more closely knit, Kishimoto says. Today, the department and SPS are so integrated that the line between them isn’t always clear. “In a way, my role is to blur that line,” Kishimoto says. That means creating an environment where the department supports what the students want to do and vice versa, he says. “Our doors are open, and students feel free and welcome to come in and talk about classes, about research, about life, the universe, anything.”

Kishimoto also sees his role as connecting students to opportunities—which often means finding money. “I don’t ever want [funding] to be the issue—why we can’t do things that are engaging for all our members,” he says. In 2022, 15 of his students traveled 3,000 miles from San Diego to Washington, DC, for the Physics Congress. The chapter covered all expenses—primarily through Kishimoto’s fundraising efforts.

“I’ve had a lot of excellent SPS student leaders who were able to corral their colleagues, their peers, to do things,” Kishimoto says. “When we have a really successful year, my role is just to connect [students] to those resources.”

When students are less engaged, Kishimoto may plan some SPS events, invite students, and “yell into the void,” but he doesn’t sweat it. “The students who have interest in doing these things, they ebb and flow. I’ve never stressed about it when the ebbing part happens.”

Kishimoto’s approach to advising is helping students find their passion in physics and supporting them in what they want to do. It’s one of the things he finds most rewarding. That means that each SPS cohort sets its own agenda based on what the current students are passionate about. But they don’t have to reinvent the wheel—the chapter’s strong legacy of activity, relationships, and community carries on.

“Dr. Chad Kishimoto, or simply Chad to most of us, is the best chapter advisor and mentor I could have hoped for,” one student wrote in Kishimoto’s nomination package for this award. “Through Dr. Kishimoto, the rest of the faculty in the department have become very supportive and accustomed to our SPS chapter, which has resulted in more collaborative events, more funding, and more exposure. SPS has truly become our little family, and this is largely thanks to him.”