The Barbara Wolff-Reichert Grant

The Barbara Wolff-Reichert Grant will provide up to $8,000, with a 50% departmental match, toward the purchase of a TeachSpin instrument successfully mastered by a participant in an ALPhA Immersion.

This grant honors the special relationship I have with TeachSpin, the advanced physics lab, ALPhA, and the dedicated men and women who teach advanced labs. I have been part of TeachSpin since it was started in our basement with the sole intention of creating a pulsed NMR designed for teaching that would make this exciting field accessible to every future experimental physicist. I have had my own horizons expanded by every new apparatus added to TeachSpins’ offerings.

Because I believe an advanced lab should be a place where future physicists can explore a variety of areas of physics, I think the Immersion program, which empowers instructors willing to teach experiments outside their area of expertise, is one of the most important programs that ALPhA has created.   Advanced labs, however, are notoriously underfunded. This grant is my personal acknowledgement of the contributions to experimental physics education made by the many wonderful instructors I have been privileged to know.

How do you apply for BWR grant?

You don’t directly apply for this grant, but rather one applies through the regular process for an Immersion support grant from the Foundation. Use exactly the same procedure and the same forms as the other grant applications for Immersion support.

The steps are:

  1. Fill out all the applications for the Foundation Immersion support.
  2. Get your school’s official commitment to fund 50% of the equipment cost.
  3. If you have completed an Immersion on a TeachSpin apparatus, you will automatically be placed in the pool of applicants for the BWR grant.
  4. If your application is awarded the BWR grant, your school will need only fund 50% of the apparatus cost. (Subject to the limit of $8,000 per grant)
  5. If your application does not receive the BWR grant, it will still be considered, along with the other applications, for funding from the Foundations’ other resources.

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