Robert A. Weller
Professor of Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, and
Physics
Prof. Weller obtained his B.S. degree in Engineering
Physics from the University of Tennessee
in 1971 and served from 1971 to 1973 as an officer in the United
States Navy aboard the USS
Constellation. He received his Ph.D. degree in Physics
in 1978 from the California Institute
of Technology, for the study of ion beam erosion of surfaces, specifically for astrophysical
applications. He remained at Caltech until 1979 as a research associate in the
W. K. Kellogg Radiation Laboratory.
After a brief tenure as a staff member at the Institute
for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia, he returned to academia
as an Assistant, and later an Associate Professor of Physics, at Yale University. At Yale he was a member of the
staff of the A. W. Wright Nuclear
Structure Laboratory, where the theme of his research was the application
of nuclear techniques to problems in condensed matter and surface physics.
Prof. Weller came to Vanderbilt in 1987 as an Associate Professor of Materials Science
and now holds appointments in the Department
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Department
of Physics and Astronomy. Along with a colleague, he established the Accelerator
Laboratory at Vanderbilt, an interdisciplinary laboratory dedicated to the analysis
and modification of surfaces and materials by ion beams. He is now affiliated with
Vanderbilt's Institute for Space and Defense Electronics
(ISDE).
Prof. Weller's current research interests include radiation effects in materials and
electronic devices, ion beam analysis, and the development of techniques for simulating
ion beam and other radiation effects in electronics. He has been active in the use of
symbolic computation in the classroom and currently teaches courses for engineers in
circuit theory, solid state physics, electromagnetism, and scientific computing, as
well as a freshman seminar that deals each week with the late-breaking news from
all branches of science. With colleagues he holds patents for the development of
time-of-flight medium energy backscattering spectrometry and for ion-induced
electron emission microscopy.
Office: 5605 Stevenson Center, Lab: 5233 Stevenson Center
- Phone: (615) 343-6027, Fax: (615) 343-6614
- Address: Box 1821 Station B, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235
- e-mail: robert.a.weller@vanderbilt.edu