Professor Robert P. Redwine of the Department of Physics, a leader in medium energy nuclear physics research, has been named director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS), where MIT's activities in experimental and theoretical nuclear and high-energy physics are carried out. The appointment was announced by Dean of Science Robert J. Birgeneau.
Professor Redwine succeeds Professor Arthur K. Kerman, who completed last June a term of nine years as LNS Director.
Following completion of his BA (1969) at Cornell and PhD (1973) at Northwestern, Professor Redwine held positions at the University of Berne, Switzerland, and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1979. He has also been a visiting professor at Princeton University and at Rutgers University.
Professor Redwine has been involved in a variety of important experiments in intermediate energy physics, spanning weak, electromagnetic, and strong interaction physics. Early in his career, he was involved in an extensive program of weak interaction studies. This resulted in a number of fundamental limits on processes beyond the Standard Model (muon-electron conversion, neutrino oscillations, and lepton number conservation).
More recently, he has concentrated on the interaction of pions and photons with nuclei. These studies have focused on the interplay between the internal dynamics of nucleons (protons and neutrons) and the surrounding nuclear medium. He has specifically examined reactions in which clusters of nucleons act in concert to absorb large amounts of energy, thereby helping elucidate the short distance structure and dynamics of strongly interacting matter. He and his group are currently involved in a new pion absorption experiment at PSI (Switzerland) and in the design of a new large acceptance detector which will exploit the unique capabilities of an electron storage ring nearing completion at Bates.
Professor Redwine has served on many national and international physics advisory committees. He presently serves on National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee for Physics and chairs the Program Advisory Committee at PSI. He has played a strong role in the teaching program in the Department of Physics, and served as academic officer in the Department from 1987 to 1991.
Professor Redwine's wife is Assistant Professor Jacqueline N. Hewitt of the Department of Physics. They live in Winchester with their son.
A version of this article appeared in the September 23, 1992 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 37, Number 7).
