Two Decades of Connecting Students and Physicists

The Adopt-a-Physicist program connects physics alumni with high school physics classes through online discussion boards for three-week interactive sessions. Students post questions, and their “adopted” physicists answer in detail, with pictures, links, and challenging questions for students to consider. The program, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, is run by Sigma Pi Sigma in collaboration with the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and the digital library ComPADRE.

Don Lincoln, a senior scientist at Fermilab, has participated every year since the program’s inception. “I grew up in a world in which there were no scientist role models, and it wouldn’t have been all that hard for me to follow a path that didn’t involve science,” he says. Over the years, Lincoln has spoken with hundreds of enthusiastic students through the discussion boards. “Some of them have chosen to study physics in college,” he says. “I hope that some of my correspondents will themselves one day be Adopt-a-Physicist mentors.”

Gina Watkiss’s classes at The Heritage School in Georgia have participated in Adopt-a-Physicist for more than 10 years, and they have adopted Lincoln multiple times. During those sessions, her students are always thrilled to see him featured in the school library’s issue of Scientific American and NOVA programs on TV, she says.

For a few weeks each year, Adopt-a-Physicist “links my classroom directly to the real world of physicists,” says Matthew Anticole, a physics teacher at Norwin High School in Pennsylvania. “My STEM-centric students have impactful conversations with folks they aspire to become,” he says. “My STEM-adverse students, on the other hand, discover that physicists are actually just normal (and usually pretty funny) people who do cool and important things with physics.”

Through the program, students are exposed to the brilliance and humanity of scientists, says Alden Marchman, another teacher at The Heritage School. “A question about dark matter, pulsars, or spacetime can quickly turn into a conversation about a favorite baseball team or a treasured recipe,” he says.

During one session, Tom Hogan of Quantum Design intrigued students with his latest side project, building replica lightsabers modeled after the hilts you see in the Star Wars films. Another time, Jason Kooi, a research physicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, captured students with these opening lines, “Physics has been a passion of mine for many years. As a kid under the influence of such notable scientists as Dr. Egon Spengler (Ghostbusters) and Donatello (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), I would spend hours tinkering with anything I could get my hands on.”

Lisa Sitek, a science teacher at Burlington High School in Vermont and a 14- year veteran of the program, says interacting with physicists gives her students a broader sense of what it means to be a physicist. “The Adopt-a-Physicist program allows students, who often think the only job in physics is in a lab, to meet real people using physics in interesting jobs that they could see themselves doing one day,” she says. “The program helps take away the mystery of physics and answers the question, ‘When would I ever use physics?’”

Teachers also appreciate that their students are exposed to physics and astronomy topics beyond what is covered in introductory textbooks. Ami DuBois, a research physicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, introduced students to plasma in her 2022 forum. That prompted a student to reply, “We normally only study the three main types of matter, so to learn about the 4th is really cool! Lightning and neon lights are the only two other forms of plasma that I know about, but I would love to learn about some other examples!”

The impact of these interactions is evident in feedback from students. “I learned about the similarities and differences between going toward a more engineering-based path or a research-based path in college and as a career,” says one student from Norwin High School. “Physics not only teaches about how the universe works but teaches your brain how to think in different ways,” says another student, reflecting on what they learned from their experience.

At the end of each Adopt-a-Physicist session, Anticole’s students express their experiences in Haiku (and Haiku-ish) form.

qubits work unseen

yet physics and math give eyes

waveform collapses

Deciding is hard

Having doubt is no issue

Go with your passion

I have no idea

what I’m doing after school

maybe it’s physics

Helena Richie, a former student of Anticole’s, is now a doctoral candidate in physics. She’s come full circle, now participating in the program as a physicist. As a high school student, an Adopt-a-Physicist conversation played a pivotal role in her decision to pursue astrophysics.

“I had a love for astronomy throughout my life, but somewhere along the way, I had picked up the idea that it wasn’t a realistic career path for me,” she says. Surely there were only a few people who could make a living studying the universe, she thought.

“The main thing that participating in Adopt-a-Physicist helped me learn is that being an astronomer is a ‘real’ career path,” she says. Hearing that it was a path she could pursue directly from an astronomer was really important, she notes.

Physicists and astronomers of all specialties, education levels, and career types are invited to interact with students through Adopt-a-Physicist. You too can influence how students perceive a career in physics or astronomy—and whether they think they’re capable of achieving one

Learn more and register at adoptaphysicist.org .

One of teacher Lisa Sitek’s favorite physicists to adopt was Kenneth Ford, a participating physicist for 18 years. In 2024, at 98 years old, he responded to a student’s question about childhood idols with this reply:

Two of the giants of the field with whom I had the chance to work were John Wheeler and Enrico Fermi. Wheeler, who coined the term ‘black hole,’ transformed Einstein’s theory of general relativity into a tool of experimental physics. Fermi explained the phenomenon of beta decay and laid the groundwork for much of modern particle physics.

I never met Einstein, although we lived in Princeton at the same time. Since I drove around Princeton’s streets at night, sometimes too fast, I did worry that my lasting claim to fame might be bringing Einstein’s life to an untimely end.

Idolize is not a term I would use. Respect and admiration seem better. These giants are human with human frailties complementing their brilliance. And mostly, they are very likable people.

Sadly, Ford passed away on December 5, 2025, at age 99. He will be greatly missed in upcoming Adopt-a-Physicist forums.