Sean P. Robinson, Ph.D.
Lecturer
Associate Director of the Helena Foundation Junior Laboratory
MIT Department of Physics
Updated June, 2019
I am an educator specializing in advanced laboratory physics. I was orignally trained as a theoretical particle physicist, but now engage in research across a broad range of physics and other sciences. As a teacher, I oversee operation of the Helena Foundation Junior Laboratory, which hosts the experimental physics advanced laboratory sequence 8.13/8.14, also known as “Junior Lab“. We focus on training students with the skills and attitudes they need to think like physicists and believe in their own identity as full members of the scientific community — broadly understanding that community to extended far beyond the academic sector. While our students certainly “learn to do physics” and “learn about physics”, our learning goals emphasize that they “learn to be physicists”.
At various times in the past, I have held the following positions in the Department of Physics at MIT:
- Academic Administrator, responsible for executing the academic program of the Department
- section leader in 8.01, aka Physics I, aka Introduction to Newtonian Mechanics
- Technical Instructor in Junior Lab
- graduate student, splitting my time about equally between research in theoretical physics and teaching experimental physics
- undergraduate student, bouncing between optical astronomy, solar wind physics, and quantum computer algorithms
- Sometime in the middle of the above sequence, I was employed in the construction of a mid-sized facility for research, education, and administration for the MIT Physics Department, known variously as the PDSI project or the Green Center for Physics. That was a great challenge and I enjoyed the work, but I’m happy to be a scientist and a teacher again. On the other hand, I don’t get much opportunity to wear a hard hat any more.
Read more:
- My teaching activities, including the Junior Lab group’s contributions to progress in the field of advanced lab physics teaching.
- My advising activities, including discussion of the 8-flex physics degree option at MIT.
- My research activities in theoretical and experimental physics, climate adaptation studies, quantitative biology, and education research.
- My curriculm vitae, as well as hints of information about my life beyond science.
- MIT Physics Department personel page