UTC Society of Physics Students members present their LEGOLAS project at the 2024 Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. From left: Emery Rutledge, Olivia Ziemer, Dr. Joshua Hamblen, Megan Black, Dr. Tatiana Allen, Samuel Glandon, Ike Deitch and Evan Humberd (photo courtesy of Dr. Tatiana Allen).
UC Foundation Professor of Physics Tatiana Allen has been named the 2023–24 Society of Physics Students (SPS) Outstanding Chapter Advisor for her leadership and guidance of the SPS chapter at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
The Outstanding Chapter Advisor—the highest honor given annually by the SPS—is bestowed to one advisor among approximately 850 chapters nationwide. The award recognizes exceptional leadership, student leadership development, and the support and encouragement an advisor provides to their chapter.
Allen received the award at the recent American Association of Physics Teachers winter meeting in St. Louis. Her accolade was also featured in “The SPS Observer,” published by SPS and the American Institute of Physics.
Dr. Tatiana Allen
“It is a great honor,” said Allen, a member of the UTC faculty since 1993. “I learned later that our SPS students nominated me. They kept it a secret, so when I got a note from the national office, it was a big surprise.
“For me, being recognized for working with students is one of the greatest joys of our profession. I am very grateful.”
Dr. Keenan Dungey, head of the UTC Department of Chemistry and Physics, said that Allen—the associate head of physics, “has revitalized our chapter of the Society of Physics Students.”
“Under her leadership, the students have applied for and received national grants to support their projects. They also perform outreach to the community, such as volunteering for Earth Day at the Creative Discovery Museum,” Dungey said. “And we have resumed inducting members into Sigma Pi Sigma, the national physics honors society. Our chapter is one of the oldest in the country, established in 1929.”
Allen, who has taught physics for nearly 40 years, became the SPS chapter advisor in 2021. Her tenure began during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when remote learning made it challenging to engage students—and SPS activities had largely ceased.
To revive student engagement, Allen proposed a project to assemble a LEGO model of the Kibble Balance—a device developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to redefine the kilogram based on the Planck constant. The project, funded by an SPS Chapter Research Award, became a catalyst for rebuilding the chapter’s sense of community.
Allen’s emphasis on hands-on projects and student leadership has led to notable successes. Physics major Landon Boone, who helped lead the LEGO Kibble Balance project as a freshman, went on to secure a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship at NIST. Following his fellowship, Boone—now a senior and the UTC SPS president—was offered a full-time position working with the Kibble Balance.
Allen’s most recent initiative is the LEGOLAS project—short for LEGO-based Low-cost Autonomous Scientist—a machine-learning model developed at the University of Maryland, College Park. UTC students received another SPS Chapter Research Award to construct the model, advancing the project by modifying the design and rewriting the manual.
Over the past two years, the UTC SPS chapter has received the national organization’s Outstanding Chapter Award, an honor earned by fewer than 15% of SPS chapters annually. SPS chapters are evaluated on their involvement with the campus community, the broader physics profession, the public and national SPS programs.
In “The SPS Observer” profile, Allen was asked to offer advice to advisors.
“Find good projects that will unite the group,” she said. “Let the students run them, own them, be leaders, be responsible and be creative. Be ‘on call’ if help is needed, but foster independence, problem-solving and building community. Students have so much to offer. Let them shine.”
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