physics

Laurie McNeil

Laurie McNeil is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Laurie McNeil rather than just read about it. In short: Laurie Elizabeth McNeil (born 1956) is an American condensed matter physicist and materials scientist whose research topics have included optical spectroscopy, the properties of crystals and semiconductors, and the synthesis of carbon nanotubes. She is Bernard Gray Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Key takeaways

Laurie McNeil belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Laurie McNeil to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Laurie McNeil from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Laurie Elizabeth McNeil (born 1956) is an American condensed matter physicist and materials scientist whose research topics have included optical spectroscopy, the properties of crystals and semiconductors, and the synthesis of carbon nanotubes. She is Bernard Gray Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. McNeil is also a choral mezzo-soprano and has taught many freshman seminars on the physics of music.

Education and career McNeil was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan on August 19, 1956. After attending Huron High School in Ann Arbor, she graduated from Radcliffe College and Harvard University in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and a master's degree in physics, respectively. She went on to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for advanced graduate study in physics, including also summer research at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, earning a second master's degree in 1979 and completing her Ph.D. in 1982. Her dissertation, The effect of pressure on the resistivity and Hall coefficient of amorphous metallic alloys, was supervised by David Lazarus. After postdoctoral study with Mildred Dresselhaus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, supported by IBM, she became an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1984, with an adjunct appointment in the Curriculum in Applied Sciences. At the time, she was the only woman with a tenure track position in the department. She was promoted to associate professor in 1991 and full professor in 1996. She chaired the Department of Physics and Astronomy from 2004 to 2009, and as chair acted to significantly increase the number of women faculty in the department. She also served as interim chair of the Curriculum in Applied and Materials Sciences from 2007 to 2008. McNeil chaired the Southeast Section of the American Physical Society (APS) for a term ending in 2012. She also chaired a joint task force of the APS and American Association of Physics Teachers on undergraduate physics education from 2014 to 2018.

Recognition McNeil was named the Bowman and Gordon Gray Professor at the University of North Carolina in 1996, and named Bernard Gray Distinguished Professor in 2014. In 2000, she became the inaugural Kathryn A. McCarthy lecturer in physics at Tufts University, and in 2007, she became the inaugural Dorothy Daspit lecturer in science at Tulane University. She was named a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer for 2019–2021. In 2001, she was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society, after a nomination from the APS Forum on Physics and Society, "for numerous contributions towards improving the climate for women in physics, including extending the Committee on the Status of Women in Physics Academic Site Visit Program and performing an extensive report on the dual-career couple problem." In 2019, the Southeast Section of the APS gave her their George B. Pegram Award for Excellence in Physics Education in the Southeast. In 2021, the APS Office of Government Affairs gave her their Five Sigma Physicist award for her participation in grassroots campaigns advocating government action on science policy issues, including supporting foreign students whose visas were endangered by the lack of in-person classes they could take during the COVID-19 pandemic.

References

External links Home page Laurie McNeil publications indexed by Google Scholar "RENCI People - Laurie E. McNeil". YouTube. RENCIMedia. 9 March 2011.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Laurie McNeil

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Laurie McNeil claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Laurie McNeil before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Laurie McNeil ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Laurie McNeil

In research: Laurie McNeil appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Laurie McNeil in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Laurie McNeil is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1956 births, 20th-century American physicists, 20th-century American women physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Laurie McNeil outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Laurie McNeil in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Laurie McNeil means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Laurie McNeil out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Laurie McNeil in simple terms?

Why does Laurie McNeil matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Laurie McNeil?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Laurie McNeil.