By SHANNON O. WELLS
In a classroom at Pitt’s Thaw Hall, a tall, graying-yet robust-looking middle-aged man enthusiastically takes hold of a cable attached to a small, round speaker. He starts spinning it, lasso-like, over his head, conjuring a kind of, well, electronically unhinged Roy Rogers.
As the speaker’s siren-like frequency wavers more intensely with each faster rotation, the instructor calmly explains to the rapt students that they’re experiencing a change in soundwave frequency related to an observer moving relative to the wave’s source. Fortunately, the phenomenon has a simpler name.
“You hear that changing sound?” he eagerly asks. “That’s the Doppler effect.”
In his new undergraduate-level class, “PHYS 0088 Physics of Energy,” Professor Pat Gallagher is clearly on a roll.
In other demonstrations, he hands out wooden sticks and copper and steel wires for students to see and feel for themselves how different elements respond to forces of tension, torsion and compression, and a spring-and-weight apparatus — along with a frequency generator — shows the principles of oscillation and Hooke’s Law, the relationship between force and displacement in a spring.
The small group of students, from both Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University, seems genuinely — if quietly — impressed with the presentations. It’s doubtful they’d be any more so had the dynamic Department of Physics and Astronomy professor before them revealed that at this time two years ago, he led the very university whose classroom they occupy.
Gallagher, who served as the Pitt’s 18th chancellor from 2014 to 2023 before deciding to step down, downplayed the notion that students drawn to his self-described “bus tour of physics” class were impressed by his illustrious, relatively recent leadership role.
“Most of them probably don’t know that,” he said. “That’s cool. That’s the way it should be, actually. I’m unknown on ‘Rate Your Professor,’ so I’m a wild card.”
Asked how many students have mentioned his chancellor-graced past, Gallagher — with nary a hint of hesitation — quipped, “None. Just you.”
To put it simply, Gallagher, whose friend Joan Gabel succeeded him as chancellor in spring 2023, has moved on. Or perhaps more accurately, he’s returned to the exploration and dissemination of physics knowledge that initially lured him into academia.
Meeting the challenge
So far Gallagher has no regrets — from his classroom re-emergence last fall with the graduate-level course, “PHYS 3101 Special Topics: Federal R&D” to his current offering
“The only thing that might make somebody skeptical is I still haven’t hung up pictures and other things in my office,” he noted. “That’s only because I’m a procrastinator, not because of any (lack of) intention. I really did want to go back to the faculty. That was not a trick to buy time for anything else.”
In front of small classes, Gallagher deploys the same conversational tone and casual wit — often reinforced with a warmly mischievous grin — that from the chancellor’s dais put most larger Pitt audiences at ease, even when addressing serious matters.
“My philosophy on this course is like a tour bus,” he said of his approach. “So you’re taking a tour through physics — and I really want people on the bus, right? — so the idea is that the class is a good (opportunity for) experience. I can use the small size so they could do a lot more hands-on stuff, rather than sitting and having somebody do stuff AT them.”
The tour bus sometimes leaves the classroom to explore real-world scenarios.
A Feb. 20 tour of the thermal management system in Posvar Hall led by Audra Delo, senior manager of mechanical engineering, and Rich Ramsey, senior manager of operations and maintenance, demonstrated the complexities of regulating and distributing steam and water to heat and cool buildings and equipment throughout the Oakland campus.
Pitt Senior Peter Vassil, one of the Physics of Energy students who donned a hard hat to explore the infrastructure in the basement and penthouse sections of Posvar, said he’s enjoyed Gallagher’s class and teaching style.
“A lot of the concepts I learned in Physics 1 and Physics 2 are related to what Professor Gallagher teaches about energy and the dynamics of it,” he said. “So I thought that was really interesting.”
“And he’s very intelligent,” Vassil added. “You ask him any question, he’ll know the answer to it (and can) elaborate well on it. … The application from classroom material to the little experiments that he does, I think that’s really what’s engaging for us … because we get to see how it works in a real scenario.”
Vassil, who said he recently looked up Gallagher’s academic credentials, observed that he’s “done a lot of research and a lot of things within the education sector … It’s really great to have the opportunity to learn from a person with that resume.”
Fulfilling expectations
Gallagher may not miss being the face of Pitt, but making the relative simplicity of his new professional role look easy, however, doesn’t make it so.
“I always say that if there aren’t things that are challenging, you’re just not paying attention. Anytime you’re doing something new, you’re going to be learning as you do it, right?” he said.
There’s always things that are going to work out really well. Sometimes they work out a lot better than you expected. And there’s a lot of things that you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t think that through very carefully.’ But generally, yes, I’m pretty happy.”
The 61-year-old calls the physics course he created and leads twice a week in Thaw Hall an “experiment”: a combination of teaching and experiences, “and doing that kind of all the way through.”
“There’s no textbook for the course, so I present (material) for the first time in class,” he said of his approach. “But I always post whatever slides I use in class. Then I do a short write up for every class. I post (lecture notes) as well, so the students have a reference afterward.”
Gallagher, who grew up in Albuquerque and studied physics and philosophy at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, admitted he sometimes has to stop and reflect on his own learning journey.
“I cover an idea that I’ve been sort of living for 40 years as a physicist. You forget sometimes that when it’s a really new idea, it takes a while to digest it and internalize it,” he said. “Watching the students go through that process has been kind of fun, to sort of go back to that experience.
“Because at one time, I was just like them, learning these things for the first time,” he added. “I think that’s always a lot of fun.”
Meroushka Rosner, a senior at Carnegie Mellon who, at her academic advisor’s suggestion, cross-registered for Gallagher’s Pitt class, said it sounded “super cool.”
“I love how hands-on it is in terms of examples, how the conceptual is brought to the physical,” she said. “(Gallagher’s) been a super kind and attentive professor in a way I feel like I haven’t had with a lot of professors. You can tell he’s passionate, which I love.”
Rosner, a Vermont native, said she finds herself intrigued — after taking math and more specific physics classes — to look through the “big-picture lens” that Gallagher’s course provides. “Being exposed to the entire story and learning a lot of other things is awesome.”
While coordinating her schedule, in which the CMU semester started a week later than Pitt’s, Rosner said Gallagher “responded so positively. I was like, ‘Wow, he’s so present.’ It seemed like he really cared about teaching. … It’s definitely lived up to those expectations.”
Re-learning old tricks
The most challenging aspects of returning to the classroom, Gallagher noted, are the newest ones: logistics, planning and management. Running the Canvas website, creating homework assignments, checking attendance and being attenuated to students’ needs and concerns all come into play.
“And there’s a little bit of stagecraft: getting your demos ready and working with our team here in the department to make sure that’s in hand, making sure I know how to run them,” he said.
With credentials including director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where he served at President Barack Obama’s behest from 2009-14, Gallagher’s resume is not your run of the mill. As part of Obama’s America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, he also served in the newly created Undersecretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology position.
Despite such bona fides, as the fall 2024 semester loomed, he wasn’t sure all his pre-classroom bases were covered.
“Those are just skills that I did not have to use as chancellor or as NIST director — or anything else that I’ve done for a long time,” he confessed. “So that’s all brand new.”
“It’s actually one of those things that when people do it really well, you don’t even know they’re doing it,” he observed. “But when you see people stumble around, you’re probably thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, do they know what they’re doing?’ So I try to be attentive to those details.”
His teaching odyssey started after graduating high school in 1985. Gallagher taught science and math to high school students in St. Joseph, Missouri, in the period between his undergraduate and grad-school years.
“I always said it was the hardest job I ever loved. It was a great job, but it was incredibly challenging being a new teacher right out of school with that much teaching load.”
Calling it a “real sink or swim moment,” the experience sent him scurrying toward graduate school. Fatefully, as it turned out, Gallagher chose Pitt. In 1991, he received a doctoral degree in physics from the University.
“That’s why I came to Pitt as a physics student. I thought, ‘Well, I like this, but I want to do it at the college level,’” he said. “And I thought I would get my doctorate and then go teach. I didn’t realize I would end up going into a research career, and then a management career.”
His first year of graduate school included working as a teaching assistant. “I was supporting an introductory physics class at that time,” he said. “That’s probably the only time I was in classrooms at Pitt, until now.”
New philosophy
Looking toward the next academic year, Gallagher plans to offer both the undergraduate- and grad-level courses he’s currently teaching, while opening the latter to a wider array of students. For the “Physics of Energy” course, the idea for next year is to offer an honors version.
“We again take a look at science through the idea of energy, but will also tie it to experience,” he noted. “But with the honor students, the new element is to probe some of the deeper ideas that come out through the science,” including fundamental questions about the roles of geometry and math and describing nature from an “almost philosophical” approach.
“I wanted to kind of build on that, because I think it’s interesting and it’s fascinating how some of the earliest scientists — including all the way through Albert Einstein — had very philosophical roles as they tried to explain what their new insights meant in terms of our understanding of nature,” he said. “So I’m excited about that one.”
Still enjoying what he calls his “rookie year,” Gallagher has high hopes for what comes next. “The coaches always say there’s a big jump in capability in year two,” he said. “I’m hoping that happens to me.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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