The Piotr Decowski Memorial Symposium<\/a>, scheduled from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in McConnell Hall, will feature talks by guest speakers, presentations by Decowski\u2019s former students and time for informal sharing by participants. A reception will follow to give current students and alumnae an opportunity to network about physics courses and opportunities in the field.<\/p>\nAmong the speakers are Decowski\u2019s son, Patrick, now a professor of physics at the University of Amsterdam, as well as Malgorzata Pfab\u00e9, Smith professor emerita and lecturer in physics. Other invited speakers are\u00a0Krishna Kumar, a professor at SUNY Stonybrook,\u00a0and\u00a0Barbara Badelek, a professor at the University of Warsaw\u2014both former research colleagues of Decowski’s.<\/p>\n
Decowski\u2019s wife, Ineke ter Meulen, will also attend the symposium.<\/p>\n
The event is designed to celebrate Decowski\u2019s legacy at Smith, said physics professor Nalini Easwar\u2014a legacy that extends not only to physics majors but also to students in other disciplines who experienced his talents in the classroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cPiotr was a big part of making physics visible to the rest of the campus,\u201d Easwar said. \u201cHe was a great teacher, a great colleague and a real citizen of Smith.\u201d<\/p>\n
Easwar still remembers the impression Decowski made when he first interviewed for a faculty position at Smith in 1990. A native of Poland, Decowski earned his doctorate and taught for many years at the University of Warsaw. He also worked at other international research and educational institutions, including the Center for Nuclear Research in Juelich, Germany.<\/p>\n
In his interview at Smith, Easwar said Decowski gave a glimpse of his hands-on teaching style.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked if anyone had a folding umbrella,\u201d Easwar recalled. \u201cHe then opened the umbrella and used it to illustrate a key idea in his talk.\u00a0He was always thinking of ways to make things easy for the students to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pfab\u00e9 also praised Decowski\u2019s ability to make complex scientific theories clear and interesting to his students.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would go to the classroom with a little cart full of equipment for his demonstrations,\u201d said Pfab\u00e9, who first met Decowski when they were both students at the University of Warsaw.<\/p>\n
Pfab\u00e9 said Decowski\u2019s passion for physics was palpable in his classroom and his laboratory.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe loved the material he taught and the way he taught it would make the students interested, too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Patrick Decowski, now 41, said his father especially enjoyed teaching at Smith, with its small classes and \u201cmore intense student-faculty interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe also loved including students in his research,\u201d the younger Decowski said, when reached at his office in the Netherlands. \u201cI spent a semester at the University of Massachusetts in 1993 doing a project with my dad. So I also got to experience him as a mentor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anna Boehle \u201911 said Decowski is the reason she majored in physics at Smith and is now pursuing graduate studies in astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis was the first college physics class I ever took,” said Boehle, who also plans to attend the memorial symposium on campus. \u201cHe was such a caring teacher, always available for questions. I didn\u2019t feel scared about the subject.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked to describe the main lesson she learned from Decowski, Lambert said, \u201cJoy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was clear he got joy out of his research,\u201d she said. \u201cHe taught me that the joy of scientific curiosity can actually be your career.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Darcy Lambert \u201905 has only one regret about studying with physics professor Piotr Decowski during her years at Smith. \u201cI don\u2019t think I ever told him how important he was to me,\u201d said Lambert of Decowski, who died in May of lung cancer at 74. Lambert took just one physics class with Decowski, who taught […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11620","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11620"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11726,"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11620\/revisions\/11726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smith.edu\/news-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}