Andy Tillotson
Senior Lecturer of Physics
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: BS Vanderbilt University; PhD University of Maryland
Research Areas: Physics Education Research; Connections between Statistical Mechanics and Music
Andy Tillotson's focus at NYU Abu Dhabi is teaching physics and helping to develop the Foundations of Science curriculum. Prior to coming to NYU Abu Dhabi, he was a Clinical Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he taught a variety of courses, led a curriculum revision effort in the introductory physics sequence, and was director of teaching laboratory operations. His primary research interest is in Physics education research (PER), particularly in measuring the effectiveness of active learning instructional strategies as well as exploring the ways that physics laboratory activities can lead students to more expert-like scientific thinking.
He is also working on a project that seeks to unify basic research in statistical mechanics, dynamical systems and chaos with music and composition. The research builds upon recently published work to explore how musical composition, informed by mathematical physics, can create new knowledge in both areas..