{"id":130,"date":"2025-11-24T16:50:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T16:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.physics.wisc.edu\/magazine\/?p=130"},"modified":"2025-11-24T17:13:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T17:13:56","slug":"bov-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.physics.wisc.edu\/magazine\/bov-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Driving the Future: The Vital Role of the Physics Board of Visitors"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bill Nichols, BoV Chair
\n<\/span><\/em>If you\u2019ve considered supporting the Department of Physics, then the Physics Board of Visitors (BoV) wants you! This invitation highlights the crucial and engaging opportunities available to friends and alumni of the department. The BoV, an independent council of dedicated supporters, meets biannually to advise on matters of importance. It serves as a critical bridge between the department\u2019s academic mission and the broader community, helping to steer its future and to enhance its impact.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Comprehensive Mission<\/b><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The BoV operates under a formal charge to champion the Department of Physics from every angle. Its core responsibilities are comprehensive: serving as ambassadors to increase public awareness of the department\u2019s achievements, assisting in fundraising efforts, and advocating for its interests.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond advocacy, the board provides high-level strategic advice. This includes advising on optimizing the impact of the department\u2019s research activities and helping to assess the societal impact of new research directions. The BoV is also directly committed to the student body, providing mentoring, networking opportunities, and career assistance to undergraduates, graduate students, and post-doctoral associates.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"a
The Physics and Astronomy Boards of Visitors took a tour of Fermilab in October 2025 | photo: Mae Saul<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Current Initiatives: Enhancing Prestige and Building Pipelines<\/b><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The BoV\u2019s current broad emphasis is on enhancing the department\u2019s long-term prestige. A key component of this strategy is supporting the growth of the faculty which, thanks to the support of Letters & Science Dean Eric Wilcots, is approaching historic highs. This growth translates directly into more impactful research, prestigious awards, and successful graduates, building on the department\u2019s long history of producing top-tier PhDs for academia, national labs, and industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

A major recent focus, prompted by Dean Wilcots, is to strengthen the pipeline for undergraduate physics majors seeking employment immediately after their bachelor\u2019s degree. While a physics degree and successful programs like AMEP have always provided a strong foundation, the BoV advised on recent changes to the Physics curriculum to make students even more competitive. This new curriculum increases flexibility, allowing students to acquire in-demand skills like computing and large data set analysis. Concurrently, the BoV is identifying and securing summer internships, which are considered vital by many employers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our newest initiative is to mitigate today\u2019s budget challenges by leveraging the department\u2019s key technology thrusts including quantum information systems, fusion research, artificial intelligence, and others, to forge partnerships with industry and government programs. This initiative has just been launched, and we are actively soliciting new members to help bring it to fruition.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Adventures of the Board<\/b><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Service on the BoV is not just hard work; it is also an intellectual <\/span>adventure. <\/span>Members satisfy their own curiosity at every meeting with research presentations from students and faculty, offering a front-row seat to the department\u2019s cutting-edge work.<\/span><\/p>\n

The role also includes field trips to some of the world\u2019s most advanced research facilities. This fall, we joined the Astronomy BoV for a daylong tour of Fermilab. In the recent past, BoV members have visited CERN in Geneva, Switzerland; Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in California; and the Physical Science Laboratory in Stoughton, Wisconsin \u2014 home of the WHAM plasma fusion device and where IceCube\u2019s Digital Optical Modules are made.<\/span><\/p>\n

Please consider joining the BoV not only to assist the Department of Physics in defining and achieving its goals, but also to have privileged access to leading-edge research, intellectual stimulation, and tours of some of the most famous and awe-inspiring physics laboratories in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"people
BoV members actively explore cutting-edge physics research. | Photo: Kevin Black<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bill Nichols, BoV Chair If you\u2019ve considered supporting the Department of Physics, then the Physics Board of Visitors (BoV) wants you! This invitation highlights the crucial and engaging opportunities available to friends and alumni …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-vol-30","category-board-of-visitors"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.physics.wisc.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.physics.wisc.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.physics.wisc.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.physics.wisc.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.physics.wisc.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.physics.wisc.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138,"href":"https:\/\/www.physics.wisc.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.physics.wisc.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.physics.wisc.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.physics.wisc.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}