Richard Wiener began working as a program officer at Research Corporation in September 2006. From 1995-2006 he was a physics professor at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon and Chair of the Division of Natural Sciences from 2004-2006. His research interests center on nonlinear pattern formation with an emphasis on chaotic patterns in fluid flows. Many of his publications in Physical Review Letters, Physical Review E, the Physics of Fluids, and the American Journal of Physics include undergraduate student coauthors. He recently has been working on modeling peak oil production and modeling opinion dynamics on social networks. His teaching interests involve implementing new curricula developed from empirically based physics education research including Workshop Physics, Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, Peer Instruction, and Tutorials for Introductory Physics.
He completed a BA in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley in 1978 and an MS and PhD in physics at the University of Oregon under the direction of London prize recipient Russell Donnelly in 1988 and 1991, respectively. He also worked as a teaching assistant with David Sokoloff, a leading physics education researcher. He has been a National Corporation for Atmospheric Research Postdoctoral Fellow in Ocean Modeling at Oregon State University, a Visiting Professor at Lewis & Clark College, and a Visiting Scientist and Visiting Professor in Eberhard Bodenschatz' research group at Cornell University. Dr. Wiener currently holds an appointment as an adjunct Professor of Physics at the University of Arizona and he is a member of the Executive Committee of the Forum on Physics and Society of the American Physical Society.
