Josh Gladden
OXFORD, Miss. – A University of Mississippi administrator and associate professor of physics and astronomy has been elected to two national societies’ leadership positions.
Joseph “Josh” Gladden, director of the university’s National Center for Physical Acoustics, is chair of the Acoustical Society of America’s Physical Acoustics Technical Committee. During his three-year term in the role, his primary duties are to represent the physical acoustics community to the larger ASA leadership, work to ensure a broad and robust representation of physical acoustics at the biannual ASA meetings, and to help implement tools and resources to advance and connect the international physical acoustics community.
Gladden is also a “member-at-large” for the topical Group on Instrumentation and Measurement Science, which is a unit of the American Physical Society. The focus of GIMS is to advance the development of new measurement tools and techniques by creating a forum for discussions, collaborations, awareness and recognition of significant achievements.
“I am honored to represent my colleagues in the national and international physical acoustics research community,” Gladden said. “My election to the GIMS came a bit of a surprise, but I am excited to get involved in this group.”
Gladden shared his vision for both groups.
“My primary goals as chair will be to increase and improve tools for physical acoustics researchers to connect and collaborate, as well is to maintain a wide range of topics being discussed at our biannual meetings,” he said. “The primary goal of the GIMS is to promote and provide a venue for dialogue on the development of new instrumentation and measurement techniques in the physics community.
“This is important because often, new breakthroughs in physics and science in general follow the development of a new tool which provides new insight.”
Gladden’s predecessor, Albert Migliori of Los Alamos National Lab, said he is confident the UM professor will make do a great job as chair.
“Josh eats, sleeps, breathes physical acoustics and is in both an intellectual and leadership position to advance the field better than anyone in the U.S.,” Migliori said. “Josh builds high-performance ultrasound measurements systems based on an advanced technology called Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy and uses them for cutting edge research.
“Because he builds, not buys, the measurement systems, he has unique research capabilities as well as providing real educational opportunities for budding scientists as students.”
Gladden joined the UM faculty as an assistant professor in 2005 after earning his Ph.D. and working as a postdoctoral fellow at Pennsylvania State University. Before that, he worked three years as a physics instructor at the United World College in Montezuma, New Mexico. The United World College is an international school for gifted students representing approximately 70 countries with a network of 10 sister campuses around the globe.
Gladden holds master’s and doctoral degrees in physics from the University of Montana and Penn State, respectively. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of the South and was a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State in 2003-2005.
Gladden co-authored a paper, “Motion of a Viscoelastic Micellar Fluid Around a Cylinder: Flow and Fracture,” which was listed in “Physics News of 2007” by the American Physical Society. His other honors and awards include membership on the Emerging Leaders Conference steering committee of promising recent alumni of the University of the South, both the Duncan and Bradock Fellowships for doctoral students at Penn State, the Tandy Technology Scholars Award for Education in Science and the William T. Allen Award in Physics.
Gladden has co-authored 21 juried articles, been an invited speaker at 18 conferences and secured research grants totaling $621,005 over a seven-year period. Gladden’s research areas are resonant ultrasound spectroscopy, wormlike micellar materials, continuum and granular dynamics.
He and his wife, Nicole, have three children: Chase, Camille and Josephine.
Established in 1989, the NCPA has unique facilities and infrastructure, including an anechoic chamber, a Mach 5 wind tunnel, a jet test facility, a resonant ultraspectroscopy lab, Faraday labs and a multimillion dollar machine shop for in-house design. NCPA employs 30 permanent, full-time individuals, as well as 16 graduate students, five research fellows and eight undergraduates. Its research scientists are recognized experts in their fields, bringing experience from government, academia and industry.
To view Gladden’s website, go to http://www.phy.olemiss.edu/~jgladden/.
For more information about the UM National Center for Physical Acoustics, call 662-915-5889 or go to http://ncpa.olemiss.edu/.